Edward Alsop, of Alsop’s Hill and Alsop’s Quarry, died, aged 78 and was buried at St Giles on 7 September 1860, his abode given in the Burial Register as Blower’s Hill. Does anyone know where this was? I didn’t! And no-one in the local Facebook page knew either when I appealed there. But clearly the name was quite unremarkable to local officials who recorded information in parish Registers, compiled Poll Books and drafted Wills. They must have known where Edward was referring to. But I was puzzled, I had seen nothing to indicate that Edward had moved anywhere else, he appeared to have lived all of his life in the Windmill Farm. But I could not find Blower’s hill on any maps or in any online archives.
So I have been exploring down a little local history and genealogical rabbit hole, trying to find out where Blower’s Hill was.
Blower’s hill
The spelling and punctuation vary slightly but usually the Alsop family appear to have spelled Blower’s with an apostrophe – making Blower’s a possessive adjective. And often they did not capitalise Hill, as if it were just a description of part of the landscape, rather than a defined area.
I considered various issues:
What had this area been called before the Alsops arrived?
First of all, although the land there was known later as Alsop’s Quarry or Alsop’s Hill, it must have been called something before the Alsops came along in the mid-1700s. And it would probably have taken a few years/decades/generations of the family living there before it became associated with their name. Even then, although many records and maps show the land they farmed as Alsop’s Hill or Alsop’s quarry, the family appear always to have called it Blower’s hill.
So perhaps the earlier local descriptive name was ‘Blower’s Hill’, either for the windmill, which was apparently a manorial mill, so long established there.
Copyright: Glenys Sykes – my artist’s impression of Blower’s Hill!
Or perhaps the land was known by the name of a previous owner, since mostly the Alsops used a possessive apostrophe in the name and it was very common in this area for places to be named after their owners, such as Gadd’s Green, Darby’s Hill, Perry’s Lake, etc, etc.
So – were there any Blower families locally?
I searched all four volumes of the Rowley Parish Registers (1539-1849)for the name Blower and found just one! In 1573. a Thomas Davies married Agnes Blowere. So at some point there was at least one person called Blower or Blowere known of in the parish even if it was 200 years earlier! But when I extended the search on FreeREG to surrounding parishes (including 100 additional places within 7.5 miles) I found that , between 1750 and 1850 there were 314 entries of baptisms, marriages and burials in surrounding parishes. There were Blowers in Harborne, Halesowen, Wombourne, many, many in Penn, others in Oldswinford, Brierley Hill, Dudley, Sedgley, and especially latterly, in Bilston and Wolverhampton. Most of those are on an arc to the west of Dudley, between Harborne and Wolverhampton.
I was especially interested to note the marriage of a Susannah Blower to Joseph Hill at Clent in 1769, Rowley was a chapelry of Clent and quite a lot of Rowley people married there. And, of course, there were lots of the Hill family in the Lost Hamlets. And I also noted the marriage of Letticia Perry to John Blower in Sedgley in 1825 – hmmm, Perry’s Lake/Blower’s Hill, are immediately adjacent to each other in Rowley – interesting, perhaps their families had property interests in common!
So although there were very few Blowers in Rowley Regis in later centuries, there were plenty in adjacent areas.
The Electoral Records
Second: Another important clue lay in the Poll Books. Edward was shown in the 1837 and later Poll Books consistently with a house and land at this address, which was described as Blower’s hill Farm. I found Poll Book entries as early as 1837 – just after electoral reform had been enacted which would have given Edward the right to vote – and all of these identify his only property in Rowley Regis Parish as Blower’s hill farm, which was a house and land occupied, implying it was being farmed.
These voting rights were an important part of political and social reform in 19th century Britain. There are interesting articles with further information here ( https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/what-caused-the-1832-great-reform-act/ ) and here(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Act_1832 ), and on numerous other pages. But it was not universal suffrage, the vote given to all men (and certainly no women!). The right to vote was extended to small landowners, tenant farmers, shopkeepers and all householders who paid a yearly rental of £10 or more. So the holding of property had presumably been checked before being recorded in the Poll Books.
What did the family call it?
Thirdly, at least Edward’s generation of the family were calling it ‘Blower’s hill’, rather than Alsop’s Hill or Windmill Hill, over many years.
Answering my own question!
So I have gone through again all of the records I have found for Edward Alsop, looking carefully at the descriptions in those records.
And, finally, fourthly, looking carefully at the wording of the Probate record for Edward’s Will, shown here, it actually says that he is ‘late of the Mill Farm Blowers-hill in the parish of Rowley Regis.’ And his son Thomas and daughter Rhoda, as executors, are said to be ‘of Blowers-hill aforesaid’.
Copyright: Probate Office.
Which shows, it seems, that Blowers-hill was the name by which the area of land farmed by the Alsops was previously known, and that it and the Mill farm were one and the same place.
Another old Rowley place-name detected and, I believe, placed geographically, at least on my mental map!
The Hill family were in Rowley Regis for several centuries, (and still are) and can also be found in the surrounding parishes, from Dudley, Halesowen, Cradley, Warley, Halesowen, Tipton, Sedgley and some even further afield in Wolverhampton.
Hill is not an easy name to research in the Parish Registers. The early Registers, with their lack of place names are not too difficult – if you search the first section of the St Giles digital register for Hill, you have to skip over all the Phillips and Phillises, and most of the entries then are for members of the Hill family. But once places of residence start to be regularly recorded there are hundreds of them – Turners Hill, Gosty Hill, Reddall Hill, Old Hill, Darby’s Hill, Kates Hill, Hyams Hill – very frustrating to plough through the later records only to find that the entries contain an abode or place name, rather than a family name which includes Hill!
The Hailstone (Copyright Glenys Sykes) was close to where the Hill family lived and would have been a familiar sight to them, until it was taken down.
The first entry relating to the Hill family in the Rowley Parish Registers was in the preface written by Henrietta Auden, who was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and who apparently transcribed many other parish registers as well as Rowley Regis. Her father was the Rev. Prebendary Auden. Miss Auden notes that in 1604, in the first parish register, John Hill is noted as ‘owner’. This makes me wonder whether, at the time when surnames began to be formalised, this John had owned land on and lived on Turner’s Hill, as many later generations of Hills did, and he became known simply as John of the Hill, then John de Hill, and then John Hill? As I set out in my piece on Hall houses[1], I think it is likely that the Hill family was wealthy enough at one time to build a Hall house in what later became known as Gadd’s Green and certainly some branches of the Hill family locally were well-to-do even centuries later, as I have discovered from various Hill Wills in the 1700s and 1800s. But that is possibly simplistic thinking on my part.
An early postcard image of Turner’s Hill, copyright unknown.
Other early Hill entries in the Parish Registers
Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Hill was baptised in September 1604 and the John Hill mentioned above was buried in the following March. In 1607 Lucy, daughter of Christopher Hill was baptised at Rowley and in 1612 Elizabeth, daughter of Francis Hill so it appears that there were in the early 1600s several Hill families – fathers Thomas, Christopher, Silvester, Francis, Richard and William – living in the parish and of an age to be baptising children, perhaps brothers or cousins. And a John Hill of Warley had married Anne, daughter of William Darby which was another family of some standing in the area.
The Hills had some common but regularly used names such as Thomas, Richard, Joseph and William but it also used several more distinctive names – Silvester, Jerome, Timothy (especially Timothy!), Francis, Daniel – and Elizabeth, Ann and Rebeckah also recur amongst the women which can be useful in spotting likely connections between branches of the families.
There was an entry for the marriage of Thomas Hill and Ann Cooper at St Giles on 26 June 1687 but there is no indication where either of them came from, nor does there appear to be a baptism for either of them nor a baptism for An, daughter of Pheles (Phyllis is the modern name) who was buried on 29 February 1687/88. After that there are baptisms for John and Ann Hill, a burial for Selvester and for Thomas Hill in 1689, a burial for Elizabeth Hill, widow in 1691, baptisms for William and Hannah Hill and a burial of a Rebeckah Hill, widow in 1694. In 1695 a burial of a son John for Thomas Hill describes Thomas as from Upperside. In 1696.a child Hannah, daughter of John Hill, has a note saying ‘by non-conf.’ so perhaps the family were early dissenters or non-conformists although there are no consistent indications of this. But certainly there appear to have been several branches of the Hill family in the parish at this time. The Registers at this date do have gaps and missing pages and the entries were by no means detailed so it is not possible to know whether this was one family who had moved into the parish from elsewhere or whether they had been in the parish for some years and earlier records baptisms are lost.
In 1717 an Ambrose Hill of Dudley married Esther Dudley at St Giles, Rowley Regis. In 1723 a Job Hill married Jane Dudley at St Giles so that was two Hill grooms marrying brides named Dudley in six years, so they may well have been related to each other. And my research indicates that there are many later connections between Hill families in Dudley and Rowley Regis.
It is not feasible in this article to describe all the people named Hill in the hamlets and villages over the centuries, there are simply too many of them and some very complicated family trees. There are 123 entries for Hills in the first section of the digital parish register alone, and another 35 in the next section, before place names start to appear which adds to the number. So between the first Hill entry in1604 and 1721 (when place names start to confuse the issue) there are 158 entries in the St Giles Registers for people named Hill.
So I will concentrate on some of those Hills who were in the Lost Hamlets in the 1841 Census, and their families which I will expand in a later article.
Timothy (1763-1831) and Maria Hill nee Hipkiss (1782-1855)
Timothy, that favourite Hill name, was my 4xgreat grandfather. He had been baptised at Dudley St Thomas in 1763 and Maria Hipkiss was a Rowley girl, baptised in 1782. Maria was Timothy’s second wife but he appeared, at first sight to have had no children with Ann Priest, his first wife. Ann was also a Rowley girl and her marriage took place in St Giles, and she appears to have been buried at Dudley in May 1800. I have a little more to say on this in my next piece. Timothy made up for it with Maria, who he married at Halesowen in September 1800 and he had at least seven children, four daughters and three sons with Maria.
Timothy is a particularly commonly used Hill Christian name and can make it difficult to decide which branch of the Hills particular Timothys belonged to.
This Timothy died in 1831 so was not listed in the censuses but Maria appears in the first two – 1841 and 1851, both times living with one of her children, the first time (1841) with her youngest son Samuel when they were living in Blackberry town which appears to have been in Springfield below the Hailstone quarry, and in 1851 she was living in Perry’s Lake with her widowed daughter Mary.
Maria’s family, the Hipkisses, like the Hills, are another of the ‘core families’ of the hamlets who appear in all the censuses there between 1841 and 1881 and later, and although I have not yet transcribed the later censuses I strongly suspect that I will find them in the later censuses, too. Another of those families who lived in these small hamlets for at least three hundred years and possibly much longer, with numerous intermarriages contributing to the complex web of relationships between the core families.
TimothyHill (1763-1831) was baptised in Dudley, the son of Joseph Hill (1720-?) and Jane Bridgwater, the grandson of Samuel Hill (1684-?) and Martha Wright, and great-grandson of Samuel Hill (1660-?) and Issabill ?(Dates unknown) These earlier Hills had connections in Dudley and possibly, before that, in Oldswinford. But that is a tentative theory at present and there are numerous Hill families in the area so it is possible that is a different family. At some point, when time permits, I will research whether these people appeared in later registers in Oldswinford as that may rule them out. But there are so many Hills in the Dudley and Sedgley area, this might not be possible. But Timothy married two Rowley girls.
Maria was the daughter of John Hipkiss (1744-1818) and Mary Worton (1742-1832). Maria was baptised on 15 September 1782 at St Giles Rowley Regis and her forebears also go back in Rowley Regis for several generations and earlier in Dudley,too.
So this pattern is emerging of close kin living together in Gadds Green and Perrys Lake whose descendants continued to live there or very close by for several generations afterwards.
I have also noticed in the course of my research that often people from the Turner’s Hill/Oakham area used Dudley church, rather than St Giles and it may well be that many of these residents regarded the area on and below Turner’s Hill as separate communities, rather than a hamlet of Rowley Regis, even though most of this area was in Rowley parish.
I shall continue this theme on the Hill family with more posts to follow on the children of Timothy and Maria Hill.
The children of Timothy (1763-1831) and Maria Hill nee Hipkiss (1782-1855) – details of these will be the subject of my next articles.
This is the title of a book by the renowned historian David Hey, which is subtitled “Local Societies in England before the Industrial Revolution” and I recently noted it from an online comment as recommended reading for those of us with an interest in particular localities, whether in the form of a One Place Study or what I have heard called ‘micro-history’ or more general interest. So I acquired a copy and it has sat on my study table in a pile of other interesting books for a couple of weeks. Until a few days ago when I wanted something to read, out in the garden, sitting in the September sunshine.
Regular readers may remember that recently I commented that in the course of my research for my One Place Study, I had come to the conclusion that many of what I had called the ‘core families’ of the Lost Hamlets in particular but also Rowley village, had been there since time immemorial .
That felt rather a brave thing for me to proclaim, since I am neither academic nor a scholar, but I have come to believe this and certainly the idea seemed to strike a chord with many local people who commented on the ‘I remember Blackheath and Rowley Regis’ Facebook Page who appeared pleased to think that they were so deeply rooted or grounded as one person put it, in this small village.
I had started to observe this pattern when I first started transcribing parish registers for Rowley for FreeREG and realised that many of the names in the 19th century Registers which I was transcribing were names that had also been in the Attendance Registers of my classes at school, both at Rowley Regis Grammar School but especially at Rowley Hall Primary School. I had not seen many of those names, I realised, in the forty years since I had moved away from Rowley so perhaps they were local to the area. This observation was confirmed and reinforced by every subsequent record source I looked at.
I noticed what I came to think of as ‘local faces’ in old group photographs but which I also recognised from school. And I knew from my own family history research that physical likenesses had passed virtually unchanged over – in my instance – a period of seventy years and at least five generations, from my great-uncle who died without issue at Passchendaele in 1917 to an uncanny likeness to him which popped up in my son, born seventy years later, five generations apart. The likenesses were there in the men of the intervening generations when I looked properly at their photographs, too but my son not only had the same face but the same stance, the way he held his shoulders and, it appears from other records, similar aptitudes and skills. Other observations, over time, brought the realisation that gaits, stances, voices, aptitudes, skills, and mannerisms also passed unchanged through generations.
All of these elements also indicated to me that many families stayed close to their home ground over centuries. Some, of course, moved elsewhere for work or opportunity (and transmigration patterns between Mountsorrel in Leicestershire, Rowley Regis and the Clee Hills in Shropshire, due to particular granite working skills, have emerged clearly during this study) but most families stayed put, even if individual members moved away, often only for a time. I identified the ‘core families’ who lived in the hamlets over hundreds of years, intermarrying and mostly staying very close to home.
At the Black Country History Conference which I attended at the Black Country Living Museum last year, Simon Briercliffe gave a talk on Irish immigrants in the Black Country. He showed a chart (seen in this photograph, I can obtain the fullchart if anyone would be interested to see it) with the proportions of the population in various local towns and villages who had been born there or elsewhere, based on the places of birth shown in the 1851 census, the first census to show this specific information.
Copyright: Chart – Simon Briercliffe, photograph Glenys Sykes.
Of all the villages Simon had looked at, Rowley Regis had the largest proportion of people who had been born less than ten km away from the village, the smallest number of people born between 10 and 49 km away , even less who had been born more than 50km at all and none from Ireland. As I recall, this raised a little chuckle in the audience as he reviewed the various results with a comment to the effect that Rowley Regis was well known for the people there not moving far!
And when I began to read David Hey’s book, I found myself nodding happily at just about every sentence in the introduction. David Hey, who died, sadly, as the book was in production, I think in about 2016, noted in his introduction that he had been ‘much involved’ in the study of English local and family history at both the professional and amateur level over 50 years and had noted that the local approach, also sometimes called ‘micro-history’, to give it, he says, academic respectability, had helped to transform the understanding of the history of the nation at large.
There are chapters in the book on The people of England, England’s historic towns and cities, Organizing the countryside: Villages, hamlets and farmsteads, Earning a living in the countryside, The greatest buildings in the land, Parish churches and chapels, Timber framed houses, and Population, family life and society.
He notes the importance of considering the administrative framework of a place, and a familiarity with the natural surroundings, the study of farms and field systems, the pattern of highways and lanes, the buildings, the interpretation of place names. But all the while, he says, “we must have at the forefront of our minds the people who inhabited these landscapes, the ordinary English families as well as the high and the mighty.” He welcomed the interest in family history that reinforces the value of the local approach.
This was only the first page of the introduction and yet I was feeling as though he was directly addressing me and my work on the One Place Study!
He goes on to talk about the differing nature of the various local societies throughout England and notes that people used to speak of the neighbourhood with which they were familiar as their ‘country’ , (just as, of course, we refer to our neighbourhood as the Black Country), by which they meant not the whole of England but the local district that stretched as far as the nearest market towns. He says “The core groups of families that remained rooted in these neighbourhoods were the ones that shaped local culture and passed on their traditions.” He notes that they often bore distinctive surnames which were unique to their area, still evident today.
He notes a tenet of social history that most people in the Stewart and Tudor periods moved from their place of birth at some stage in their lives. Some will have moved but many will have left members of their families behind. He argues that the character of a local community was determined not so much by such comings and goings but by the families that stayed put, even though in time they may be outnumbered by incomers. These formed the core of the community and provided it with a sense of continuity. Networks of families were formed and repeatedly strengthened by intermarriage. He calls these ‘urban dynasties’ and quotes Arnold Bennett, writing in 1902 about families in the Potteries (also in Staffordshire, of course) who said “those families which, by virtue of numbers, variety and personal force seem to permeate a whole district, to be a calculable item of it, an essential part of its identity”. Hey notes that many of these old urban dynasties continued to run matters in their locality over several generations. I have also noted in the course of my research familiar names cropping up in reports of parish offices, of local councils, of those involved in the administration of local affairs, centuries after those names were recorded in the Court Rolls and the Parish Registers for Rowley, so this applied in the Rowley area, too.
Hey also discusses how the study of surnames has altered in recent years and his belief that each area or ‘country’ had its distinctive collection of surnames which had been formed locally in the Middle Ages. There is also now a school of thought, he says, that very many English family names, including the common ones as well as the rare, should be treated as having a unique history that must be traced back in time and that many would prove to have a single family origin. So each time I have looked at the first entry in the Rowley Registers for a name in my family tree, and wondered whether I could actually trace my line to that person, it seems that yes, I might well be able to and that this would not be too unusual.
In particular Hey notes that where surnames have been mapped from the 1881 census, the great majority of those distinctive surnames – those that appear to have had a single family origin – were still decidedly local in character. He notes that Staffordshire provides many examples of surnames which have remained concentrated in their county of origin. Examples relating to the area of the Potteries are described in the book, and he also discusses those which appear to have derived from small places, and discusses the use of detailed maps in this respect to identify the origins of some names, which may have been as small a place as one farmstead.
Of particular interest to Rowley folk, perhaps, is a paragraph in the introduction about Rayboulds. This name, he says, derived from an old personal name and appears to have had a single family origin in the Black Country. The 903 Rayboulds in the 1881 Census, he notes, included 306 in Dudley and 259 in Stourbridge. I could tell him somewhere else to look too! And that Francis Raball who appears in the Rowley Marriage Register in 1614 is surely one of those very early ones of that name.
And so for all the Darbys, Groves, Wards, Bridgwaters, Hipkisses, Willetts, Whites, Rustons, Whiles, Jeavons, Dankses, Lowes. Hadens, Detheridges, Mucklows, Parsonses, Cartwrights, numerous others – any of those family names still in the Rowley area and appearing in the mid-1500s in the first few pages of the Rowley Registers, it seems that it is not actually fanciful, to think that you are, very probably, a direct descendant from those original families in Rowley then.
Later in the book, talking about the structure of settlements, Hey says that “Hamlets are found in every English region, even in the heartlands of the Midland open-field villages. Far from being a somehow inferior type of settlement, as was once assumed, they were often more suited to communal farming than were large villages. Their versatility, adaptability, resilience and tenacity enabled most of them to survive the late medieval economic and demographic depressions, though many suffered and a proportion succumbed. They ensured that England was a country with complex and different rural economies.”
There is a fascinating breadth of knowledge in this book, distilled from a lifetime of study of local and family history by David Hey, about all sorts of details of living in earlier times. Thinking of my piece recently on the Inventory of Ambrose Crowley 1, I was interested to read in this book that livestock were far smaller than now and they produced less milk and meat, while disease was a constant threat. A cow gave 120-150 gallons of milk a year, about one sixth of present day yields. In Yorkshire the average dairy cow produced just 72 pounds of butter and cheese annually. Medieval hay meadows were valued at three or four times the level of surrounding arable lands because they provided the essential winter fodder to keep breeding stock alive over the winter, confirming the reason for the relatively high valuation given in the Inventory for the hay in the barn.
Yet Hey suggests that the inhabitants of England’s medieval towns formed only about 10% of the national population. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, most English towns remained small, they were not yet divorced from the surrounding countryside and their fields and meadows could usually be seen from the market place. This rings true to me because in the small Gloucestershire town where I now live, where expansion and development were crippled for a long period by the collapse of the wool trade, one feature of the landscape is that the surrounding countryside is clearly visible from many of the town streets, including especially long views from the Chipping, originally the Cheaping, the market place.
Hey also considers the position of London, then, as now, not typical of other English towns and with a higher proportion of non-native residents, but he notes also that, at least since the early 1600s and probably well before, London had been connected to smaller cities and market towns in every part of the kingdom by weekly carrying services. A document of 1637 lists the London inns where provincial carriers arrived and departed and their regular schedules. A study he refers to has calculated that about 205 waggons and 165 gangs of packhorses entered and left London every week, carrying a total of about 460 tons of goods each way. By 1715, regular carrying services by road in and out of London had more than doubled since 1637 and coach services to the most provincial centres numbered nearly 1000 a week.
Amongst the goods carried, I reflect, would have been nails from Rowley Regis. Small wonder then that the more ambitious of the families in Rowley, perhaps the young men wanting to expand their horizons, opted to move, at first to larger towns such as Stourbridge where there was a thriving market for nails, possibly transported from there on the river. Nails were heavy, and dense, they could be transported by pack horse or cart but roads were generally poor and travelling slow. Water transport allowed large quantities to be moved more easily, hence the development of canals to places which did not have access to rivers. But I now know of at least three Rowley families whose descendants moved to London to trade as ‘nail ironmongers’ in the city where their wares could be sold on the London markets and also shipped across the world from the London docks where they set up their businesses. They would doubtless have arranged their own transport, from the Midlands, cutting out the middleman, the carrier and probably improving their security en route. It seems that at least some of our ancestors may have been a lot more mobile than I had always thought.
Also, some young men (not many women), from all parts of the country, came to London to be apprenticed to various trades, as can be identified from Apprenticeship Registers in the archives of the various Livery Companies, as was Ambrose Crowley 3. Hey gives very interesting descriptions about how these apprenticeships were arranged and also how many families in the provinces had one or more members who were in London. Again, this brings my mind back to my ancestor Edward Cole who was married in a Fleet Marriage in London in 1730, then returning to live in Rowley Regis for the rest of his long life. I had already, as a result of earlier research, been wondering whether he and his father had been involved in transporting nails to London, now I am wondering whether there had been an apprenticeship somewhere along the line, too. So now I am going to have to learn more about Apprenticeship Records.
Thoughts
This man is speaking my language.
By learning about this early period I am seeing not only how our ancestors lived then but how this earlier period shaped the times and society that followed.
Most dry days now, I take the book and a large mug of tea out to a sunny spot in the garden and read a few more pages, not rushing, because almost everything he writes is worth understanding and thinking about. If you have found this interesting and fancy a longer read, look out for copies on Amazon or Abebooks or try ordering it through interlibrary loans. For myself, I am enjoying every page and feeling a new confidence that my researches have been leading me in the right direction and that further research is worthwhile.
David Hey was Emeritus Professor of Local and Family History at the University of Sheffield, his roots were in the Hallamshire area of Yorkshire, on which he has published numerous books, he was a hands on family historian, as well as a renowned academic. A review on the book describes it as “a magnificent overview of England’s past, which serves to unite the worlds of landscape history, family history and local history”. Another review notes that it is “highly readable, an excellent interpretative work, up to date, wide-ranging in themes, regions and chronology.”
It is also meticulously referenced and provides details of a range of other books which could tempt me, not to mention Hey’s other publications, some of which I already had. His books ‘Family names and family history’ and ‘Journeys in Family History’ have already found their way onto my TBR pile this week! I am now valiantly resisting the temptation to acquire his book “Packmen, Carriers and Packhorse Roads : Trade and Communications in North Derbyshire and South Yorkshire”, as I suspect that many of the trading conditions in metal working in that area may have been similar to those in the Black Country. And ‘Surnames, DNA, and Family History’ by George Redmonds, Turi King, and David Hey – also sings seductively to me – at this rate I am going to need another bookcase…
I have always been an avid reader and had considered myself reasonably well informed about English history, since it has always interested me. What a joy it is, in my mid-seventies, to have my knowledge and understanding of English history, of ordinary English people, (not just the powerful and wealthy who have always been well documented), and how common folk lived, my perceptions so greatly enhanced and expanded as they are being, in the course of this One Place Study and by such gifted writers as David Hey and Gillian Tindall. My only problem is that there are just not enough reading hours in the day!
In 1941 and over the next two years detailed surveys were carried out by the Government to assess the quantity and quality of farmland available to feed the nation during the War. The original forms , known as MAF (Ministry of Agriculture and Food) 32, can be seen at The National Archives so on a recent visit I arranged to see the file for farms in Rowley Regis and photographed many of them, from which I have extracted the information which follows. With full copyright acknowledgment to The National Archives, I have used different sections of the form relating to one farm – Hailstone Farm – in this article but the same farms were available for each farm and I have extracted details below.
First Section: The first set of forms No.C51/SSY in 1941 listed various crops and how much land was in use for each sort of crop being grown. Under Small Fruit were listed Strawberries, Raspberries,Currants – black, Currants red and wite, Gooseberries, Loganberries and Cultivated Blackberries, with a sub-total for the Total Acreage of Small Fruit.
The next section was for Vegetables for Human Consumption. Flowers. And Crops under Glass. Here the crops listed were Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage (Savoys, Kale and Sprouting Broccoi), Cauliflower or Broccoli (Heading), Carrots, Parsnips, Turnips and Swedes (not for fodder), Beetroot, Onions, Beans – Broad, Beans – runner and French, Peas – green for market, Peas – green for canning, Pease – harvested dry, Asparagus, Celert, Lettuce, Rhubarb, Tomatoes – growing in the open, Tomatoes – growing in Glasshouses, Other Food Cops growing in Glasshouses, Crops growing frames – fruit, vegetables, flowers and plants, Hardy Nursery Stock, Daffodils and Narcissi – not under glass, Tulips –not under glass, Other bulb flowers – not under glass, other flowers – not under glass, with again, an acreage total for each category and a subtotal.
The third section was for Stocks of Hay and Straw on the holding.
This is the completed form for Hailstone Farm.
Copyright The National Archives Document MAF 32/604/177, Extract.
So this was a comprehensive assessment of what was being grown that summer on the farms and small holdings of the country. A remarkable number of these for Rowley were Nil returns – nothing being grown, I was beginning to think that the Rowley farms were remarkably unproductive.
What happened next?
I have to confess that I cannot quite work out how the forms fitted togeether and whether they all went out at one time. But the information is pretty clear. Much more detailed surveys were compiled on Form No. C.47/S S Y which went into the size, condition, usage of the farm, the number of men employed, details of Live Stock broken down into very specific detail.
The first section listed the Statute Acres for growing each of these crops on 4th June – Wheat, Barley, Oats, Mixed corn with wheat in mixture, Mixed corn without wheat in mixture, Rye, Beans – winter or spring, for stock feeding, Peas for stock feeding, not for human consumption. Then the acreage used for vegetables had to be listed – Potatoes – first early, Potatoes – main crop and second earlies, Turnips and Swedes for fodder, Mangolds and Sugar Beet. Kale – for fodder, Rape (or Cole), Cabbage, Savoys and Kohl Rabi for fodder, Vetches or Tares, Lucerne, Mustard – for seed, Mustard for fodder, Flax – for fibre or linseed, Hops – Statute Acres – not Hop Acres, the form says sternly – who knew there was a difference?
Then acreage of Orchards had to be shown – those with crops, fallow or grass below the trees and those with small fruit below the trees had to be shown separately, and Small Fruit not under orchard trees.
Vegetables for human consumption (excluding potatoes) had a line to themselves but included Flowers and Crops under Glass. All other crops followed, including clover, Sainfoin, grass for mowing and got grazing. Then the form details information about the labour employed on the farm (not including the occupier, his wife or domestic servants). Followed by full details of the stock held, right down to the last piglet and hen, with horses required to be listed by their use and their age.
A copy of the form for Hailstone Farm is shown here, it makes interesting reading.
copyright The National Archives Document MAF 32/604/177, Extract.
The next section of the form required details to be given of the Labour employed on the 4th June 1941, including the family of the occupier and whether regular or casual, whole or part time. Then a section on Motive Power on each holding had to be completed, water wheels or turbines – in use or not, whether repairable if not in use, Steam engines, Gas Engines, Oil or Petrol Engines, Electric Motors or others – state kinds, the form says. It’s difficult to think of any other kinds, but there was obviously no excuse for not declaring it if there were any! Edit: A later part entry for one farm lists a horse – which was of course for many the main source of motive power for centuries, those or oxen. Then there was a section requiring information on Tractors held, of various sorts, with information required on the make and model.
Next the form required details of the rent being paid for the holding – if the land was owned by the occupier, the owner was required to give their best estimate of how much the rental value was. And how long the holding had been occupied by the current occupier.
copyright The National Archives Document MAF 32/604/177. Extract
Later Survey
A later Survey gave a detailed picture, not only of the amount of land held but how it related to such things as access to transport, condition of buildings, facilities and an assessment of whether the farm was being farmed efficiently. Again, this is the form relating to Hailstone Farm, part of the same form as previously.
Copyright The National Archives Document MAF 32/604/177. Extract
There were a few copies of each of these forms relating to farms in Rowley. I have grouped the details under each farm and although they are, to some extent, repetitive, I hope they will be of interest.
Hailstone Farm
The name of the Occupier at Hailstone Farm was C or G Cartwright. What was he growing in that first survey? Ah, sadly, none of the crops listed, except that he had 6 tons of hay – just one entry!
At Hailstone Farm on the longer form, there were no additional labourers so all the work must have been done by the occupier Mr Cartwright and his family. He had one 3½ horsepower Oil or Petrol engine and no tractors at all. His rent was £74 per annum. Under the length of tenancy, he stated that he had rented 35 acres for 16 years, 10 acres for 9 years and a further 7 acres for 6 years.
Farm Survey: The survey was carried out on 16 July 1942. The owner of Hailstone Farm, with 52 acres was Rowley Granite Quarries Ltd., which was based in Smethwick High Street. Mr Cartwright was a full time farmer, but occupied no other land and had no grazing rights elsewhere. T he farm was said to be conveniently laid out.
All of the land was classified as medium weight., as opposed to Heavy, Light or Peaty. The condition of the farm was judged to be naturally 50% Fair and 50% Bad, with fair access to roads, good access to railways. The condition of the farmhouse was fair but that of the farm buildings was bad. Farm roads and fences were in fair condition as was the general condition of the field drainage but there were no ditches nor cottages. No problems were noted with infestations of rabbits, rats or rooks, etc nor any heavy infestation with weeds nor derelict fields. Water supply to the farmhouse and buildings was by pipe and to the fields by stream. There was no electrical power supply at all. The condition of the arable land and pasture was judged to be poor and, although fertilisers were used to some extent on arable land, they were not used at all on grassland. The overall verdict on management of the farm? It was graded B (out of a possible A, B or C, it appears). Of the possible reasons for this, it was noted that this was due to personal failings – a lack of ambition! They certainly weren’t pulling any punches, were they?
Turner’s Hill Farm
T E Monk at Turner’s Hill Farm was another nil return on the first form. The later form showed that he had no additional workers and no machinery. He was paying £67 per annum for 27 acres and had rented it for 13 years in 1941.
Farm Survey: Carried out on 31 Aug 1943. Turner’s Hill Farm was also owned by Himley Estates. Mr Monk was described as a ‘spare time’ farmer who was also a Factory Employee., with no other land or grazing rights. The farm was said to be conveniently laid out. The farm conditions showed that the soil was 50% Medium and 50% Light and the proportions of the farm was judged to be naturally 40% Fair and 60% Bad, with good access to roads, and fair access to railways. The condition of the farmhouse and buildings was fair. The farm roads were good and fences were in fair condition as was the general condition of the field drainage although the ditches were noted as Bad. There was one cottage within the farm area. No problems were noted with infestations of rabbits, rats or rooks, etc nor any heavy infestation with weeds, there were no derelict fields. Water supply to the farmhouse and to the farm buildings and fields was by pipe. There was no electrical power supply at all. There was no seasonal shortage of water noted. The condition of the pasture land was good and fertilisers were used adequately on grassland. The overall verdict on management of the farm? It was graded B (out of a possible A, B or C, the reason given for the downgrading was ‘Divided Interests’, presumably relating to Mr Monk’s other employment.
Old Portway Farm
The first form for Old Portway Farm, occupied by Phoebe Cooks, showed just 2 tons of hay.
But the more detailed form showed that Mrs Cooks was growing a total of three acres of Main Crop potatoes, turnips/swedes and mangolds. She had 8½ acres of mowing grass and 15 acres of grazing grass plus 2½ acres of rough grazing – there seems to have been a lot of this in Rowley, perhaps due partly to the effects of quarrying and mining settlement. She had three workers, one male and one female whole time workers and one part-time male. These cared for her 6 cows in milk, her 6 cows in calf but not in milk and 1 bull (used for service). There was one other female cattle aged between one and two years, giving a total of 14 cattle. There were no sheep or pigs but she had 85 fowls over 6 months old, 68 under 6 months and 3 ducks! The remaining live stock consisted of three geldings and one other horse.
On the next page, Mrs Cooks stated that she had one wholetime family worker (male, so not herself) and one part-time casual male worker. She also, like Mr Cartwright at Hailstone Farm, had one 4hp horsepower Oil or Petrol engine and no tractors at all. Her rent was £56/10shillings per annum for 29 acres. Under the length of tenancy, she stated that she had rented the land for 30 years.
Farm Survey: Carried out on 22 May 1942. The owner of Old Portway Farm, with 26½ acres, we can now see, was again Rowley Granite Quarries Ltd., which was based in Smethwick High Street. Mrs Cooks was a full time farmer, but occupied no other land and had no grazing rights elsewhere. The farm was said to be conveniently laid out.
All of the land was classified as medium weight, as opposed to Heavy, Light or Peaty. The condition of the farm was judged to be naturally 100% Fair, with fair access to roads, and good access to railways. The condition of the farmhouse and buildings was fair. There were no farm roads and fences were in fair condition as was the general condition of the field drainage and ditches. There were no cottages. No problems were noted with infestations of rabbits, rats or rooks, etc nor any heavy infestation with weeds, there were 2.5 acres of derelict fields. Water supply to the farmhouse was by pipe and to the farm buildings fields by well. There was no seasonal shortage of water noted. There was no electrical power supply at all. The condition of the arable land was judged to be fair and of the pasture good and, although fertilisers were used adequately on arable land, they were only used to some extent on grassland. The overall verdict on management of the farm? It was graded A (out of a possible A, B or C, it appears).
Lower Portway Farm
Joseph Cooks, at No. 17 – Lower Portway Farm had even less hay – he had nothing entered on his farm on the first form but more detail on the second. He had two acres growing the same crops as Mrs Cooks, plus 5 acres of mowing grass and 10½ acres of grazing grass. He had 3 cows in milk and two in calf with their first calf plus a bull under 1 year old which was being reared for service. No sheep or pigs but 120 fowls over 6 months, 50 fowls under six months and three ducks. He had no horses!
Farm Survey: Carried out on 14 May 1942. The owner of Lower Portway Farm, with 17¼ acres, was Himley Estates Ltd, with an office address in Dudley. Mrs Cooks was a full time farmer, but occupied no other land and had no grazing rights elsewhere. The farm was said to be conveniently laid out.
All of the land was classified as light weight, as opposed to Heavy, Medium or Peaty. The condition of the farm was judged to be naturally 100% Fair, with good access to roads, and fair access to railways. The condition of the farmhouse, farm buildings and farm roads was fair. The fences and ditches were in fair condition and the general condition of the field drainage and ditches was good. There were no cottages. No problems were noted with infestations of rabbits, rats or rooks, etc nor any heavy infestation with weeds, there were no derelict fields. Water supply to the farmhouse and the farm buildings was by pipe and to fields by stream. There was no seasonal shortage of water noted. There was no electrical power supply at all. The condition of the arable and pasture land was good and fertilisers were used to some extent on both arable and grass land. The overall verdict on management of the farm? It was graded A (out of a possible A, B or C).
175 Dudley Road
The Danks brothers were listed on the first form at 175 Dudley road and they had just 1 ton of hay.
The later section shows that they were farming 15½ acres, of which they were the owners. The farmer was described as a part-time Dairyman, with no other land or grazing rights. All of the land was classified as light weight and the farm was said to be conveniently laid out.
Farm Survey: Carried out on 20 Sep 1943. The condition of the farm was judged to be naturally 40% Fair and 60% Bad, with good access to roads and to railways. The condition of the farmhouse and farm buildings was fair. There were no farm roads. The fences and ditches were in fair condition and the general condition of the field drainage and ditches was fair. There were no cottages. No problems were noted with infestations of rabbits, rats or rooks, etc nor any heavy infestation with weeds, there were no derelict fields. Water supply to the farmhouse, the farm buildings and to fields was by pipe. There was no seasonal shortage of water noted. There was electrical power from the public company for light and power, which was used for household but not farm purposes. The condition of the pasture land was good (no arable land)and there was adequate use of fertilisers on the grass land. The overall verdict on management of the farm? It was graded A (out of a possible A, B or C).
‘The Stores’, High Street, Rowley Regis
Samuel Goode was listed at ‘The Stores’, High Street, Rowley Regis and he, too had a zero return on the first form. On the later form he had no crops, no workers and no animals – or at least none of his own, he had a note saying that he had no fowl of his own but let a corner piece of land to someone called Jackson who had about 50 fowl there.
He had no additional labour, no machinery and held 7 acres at a rent of £3/10shillings which he had rented for 7 years, noted in pencil at the bottom of the form as for rough grazing only. I wonder where his land was?
Farm Survey: Carried out on 2 Sep 1943. As might be expected he had a nil return to almost all of the questions on the last section, though his land was classed as 100%light and was not stated to be derelict but the proportion of the farm which was naturally bad was 100%. There were no buildings and the water supply to his field was noted to be by ‘pit’. No power! Fertiliser was used to some extent on what was classed as grass land but the holding still managed to be classed as A, somehow.
Brickhouse Farm
The first return for the Brickhouse Farm was completed by the Borough Surveyor at the Old Hill Offices of the RRUDC and he listed a half acre of onions being grown and half a ton each of Hay and Straw. The later form reported that there were 6 ¼ acres growing oats, 2 acres growing first early potatoes and 15 acres with main crop potatoes, 1 acre growing vegetables for human consumption, 1 acre bare fallow, and 45 acres of mowing grass, plus 17 acres of rough grazing. Contrary to what is stated elsewhere on these forms, he states that there are two full time male workers or 21 and one under 18, and four casual seasonal workers, giving a total of seven. Perhaps these were actually Council employees, rather than specifically employed by the farm. There were no animals on the farm other than one horse, a gelding. But a later part of the form shows that this was apparently the only local farm with a tractor so they did not need to keep many horses.
The next part of the return for Brickhouse Farm shows that it had no men working it and that 57 ½ acres had been rented since April 1939 for a mere £12. Presumably this land was what later became the Brickhouse housing estate. A second return by the same officer still employed no men but boasted a 25hp Fordson tractor. Here 49 acres was owned by the Council with an estimated rent value of £85pa, and a further 38¼ acres rented at £19/2/6. I suppose this could include the land on which the Grammar School was built in the early 1960s. Of this land, 67 acres had been held for only 2 years and 20¼ acres for 5 years. Perhaps the Rowley Regis Council was buying up land as it became available for future uses.
Farm Survey: Carried out on 11 Oct 1943. The owner of Brickhouse Farm, with 70 acres is shown to be Rowley Regis Boro’ Council. The full time farmer was noted as a Bailiff but he occupied no other land and had no grazing rights elsewhere. The farm was said to be conveniently laid out.
All of the land was classified as medium weight, as opposed to Heavy, Light or Peaty. The condition of the farm was judged to be naturally 50% fair and 50% bad, with good access to roads and railways. The condition of the farmhouse and the farm buildings was fair. The farm roads and fences were fair and the general condition of the field drainage and ditches was fair. There were no cottages. No problems were noted with infestations of rabbits, rats or rooks, etc nor any heavy infestation with weeds, there were no derelict fields. Water supply to the farmhouse and the farm buildings was by pipe and to fields by pit. There was no seasonal shortage of water noted. There was no electrical power supply. The condition of the arable land was judged to be fair and of the pasture poor and fertilisers were used adequately on arable land and grassland. The overall verdict on management of the farm? It was graded A.
Throne Farm
W Skidmore at Throne Road had 4 tons of hay on the first form. The next form shows that he had two additional full time workers but no motors of any sort or any tractor. His 33 acres was apparently valued at a rental of £40 and he had occupied it for 20 years.
Mr Skidmore was growing 1 acre of turnips and swedes for fodder and 2 of mangolds with 20 acres of mowing grass and 10 of grazing grass. He had two adult male workers who looked after 17 milking cows and 3 cows in calf. He also had a sow in pig and 5 piglets aged 2-5 months but no fowl of any sort. He had 2 mares and 5 other horses, 7 in total.
Farm Survey: Carried out on 16 Jul 1942. Mr Skidmore was the owner of the farm and that he was a full time farmer, he occupied no other land and had no grazing rights elsewhere. The farm was said to be conveniently laid out. The soil was deemed to be naturally 50% medium and 50% light. The proportion of the farm which was naturally good was 60%and 40% fair, with good access to roads and railways. The condition of the farmhouse was fair and the farm buildings good. The farm roads and fences were fair and the general condition of the field drainage and ditches was good. There were no cottages. No problems were noted with infestations of rabbits, rats or rooks, etc nor any heavy infestation with weeds, there were no derelict fields. Water supply to the farmhouse and the farm buildings was by pipe and to fields by stream. There was no seasonal shortage of water noted. There was electrical power supply used in the farmhouse and for farm purposes. The condition of the arable land was judged to be good and of the pasture fair and fertilisers were used adequately on the arable and grassland. The overall verdict on management of the farm? It was graded A.
Farm Survey: Carried out on 12 Sep 1944. Mr Skidmore also owned land at Whiteheath Farm, 31 acres of this. All of the land was classified as medium weight, as opposed to Heavy, Light or Peaty and the farm was said to be conveniently laid out. The condition of the farm was judged to be naturally 25% fair and 75% bad, with good access to roads and fair access to railways. There was no farmhouse, farm buildings or farm roads and fences were good and the condition of the ditches and the field drainage was fair. There were no cottages. No problems were noted with infestations of rabbits, rats or rooks, etc nor any heavy infestation with weeds, there were no derelict fields. Water supply to the fields was by stream. There was no seasonal shortage of water noted. There was no electrical power supply. There was no arable land and the pasture was rated fair and fertilisers were used adequately on the grassland. The overall verdict on management of the farm? It was graded A.
1 Oakham Farm
David Whitehouse at 1 Oakham Farm had nothing to list on the first form. But the next form shows that he was growing maincrop potatoes, turnips/swedes and mangolds, and there were 16 acres of mowing grass and 20 of grazing grass. Two whole time men over 21 were employed and one 18-21 year old. There were 8 cows in milk, no poultry but three mares, plus one unbroken gelding and one other horse.
The next section shows that he had just one full time male family worker – presumably himself and no engines, although he did add that he had one source of motive power – a horse! He owned 1 acre and had rented a further 44 acres for £54pa for 11 years.
This farm was owned by F W Gould who had an address in Tipton. The farmer was full time and had no access to other land or grazing rights. All of the land was classified as medium weight and the farm was said to be conveniently laid out.
Farm Survey: Carried out on 5 Aug 1942. The condition of the farm was judged to be naturally 65% good and 35% fair, with good access to roads and railways. The condition of the farmhouse the farm buildings was fair as was the condition of the farm roads, fences and the field drainage. There were no ditches or cottages. No problems were noted with infestations of rabbits, rats or rooks, etc nor any heavy infestation with weeds, there were no derelict fields. Water supply to the farmhouse was by pipe and to farm buildings and fields by pits. There was no seasonal shortage of water noted. There was no electrical power supply. The condition of the arable land and pasture land was rated fair and fertilisers were used adequately on the arable land but only to some extent on the grass land. The overall verdict on management of the farm was graded B, with a note that the reason for this was ‘personal failings – lack of Ambition’.
2 Oakham Farm
Bert Whitehouse at 2 Oakham Farm was another farmer with nothing to list on the first form. But the next form shows a name of Joseph Whitehouse – brothers to David, perhaps? – at 2 Oakham Farm which had 13 acres of rough grazing, and one adult man working. There were 10 cows in milk and 50 fowl, plus 21 ducks, with one horse which did not fall into any of the agricultural designations, perhaps a riding horse.
This farm also had one additional full time worker – a daughter. There were no motors or tractors either and the ten acres of land had been rented for 35 years, the rent was £28pa.
Farm Survey: Carried out on 11 Aug 1942. Mr Whitehouse was noted as the owner of the farm and was a full time farmer, though with no access to other land or grazing rights. All of the land was classified as medium weight, as opposed to Heavy, Light or Peaty and the farm was said to be conveniently laid out. The condition of the farm was judged to be naturally 100% fair, with good access to roads and fair access to railways. The condition of the farmhouse and the farm buildings was fair. There were no farm roads and fences were bad and the general condition of the field drainage and ditches was fair. There were no cottages. No problems were noted with infestations of rabbits, rats or rooks, etc nor any heavy infestation with weeds, there were no derelict fields. Water supply to the farmhouse and the farm buildings was by pipe and to fields by pits. There was no seasonal shortage of water noted. There was no electrical power supply. There was no arable land and the pasture was rated fair and fertilisers were used adequately on the grassland. The overall verdict on management of the farm? It was graded B with a note that the holding was farmed by an old widow who ‘lacked management’. This is slightly contradictory because elsewhere on the forms the farmer is described as Bert Whitehouse but perhaps the farm was owned by his mother.
Lamb Cottage, Throne Road, Whiteheath
J Matthews at Lamb Cottage, Throne Road, Whiteheath had nothing to list on the first form. The second form shows that he had no crops but 4 acres of grazing grass and 2 acres of rough grazing. His livestock comprised one sow kept for breeding, 3 piglets aged 2-5 months and 10 under 2 months. There were 25 Fowls over 6 months, 4 ducks, 6 geese, 2 turkeys over 6 months and 8 under 6 months. But no horses.
Details on the next page show that he had rented just 6 acres for one year at £6. And had neither additional workers nor motive power. Of this land, a pencil note adds that 2 acres was rough grazing.
Farm Survey: Carried out on 2 Sep 1943. This farm was owned by Mr Cartwright of Hailstone Farm. The farmer Mr J Matthews was described as a part-time farmer and his other occupation was given as Farm Worker. He had no access to other land or grazing rights.
All of the land was classified as medium weight, and the farm was said to be moderately conveniently laid out. The condition of the farm was judged to be naturally 100% fair, with good access to roads and railways. The condition of the farmhouse and that of the farm buildings was fair. The condition of the farm roads, fences and ditches was fair as was the general condition of the field drainage. There were no cottages. No problems were noted with infestations of rabbits, rats or rooks, etc nor any heavy infestation with weeds, there were no derelict fields. Water supply to the farmhouse and the farm buildings was by pipe and to fields by stream. There was no seasonal shortage of water noted. There was apparently an electrical power supply to the house but not the rest of the farm. The condition of the pasture land was rated fair (no arable land)and fertilisers were used adequately on the grassland. The overall verdict on management of the farm was graded A.
Warrens Hall Farm
At Warrens Hall Farm, the Wooldridge Brothers had nothing to enter on the first form. They were growing 7 acres of oats, 2 of mangolds and 1½ acres of kale for fodder on the next. There was 30 acres of mowing grass and 45 of grazing grass, plus 16½ acres of rough grazing and 69 acres of golf course! For this they had one whole time and one part time seasonal worker – there were 20 cows in milk, and 12 in calf but not in milk. Under Poultry, there were 60 fowls over 6 months old and 40 under, 5 ducks and 4 turkeys over 6 months old, the first turkeys I have seen mentioned in these returns. The horses included 3 geldings and 2 other horses.
The next part of the form shows that there was one whole-time male family worker, plus one male and two female part time workers, with – again – no motive power of any sort. The annual rent for the 171 acres was £110 and it had been rented since 1913, 28 years.
Farm Survey: Carried out on 11 May 1942. Warren’s Hall Farm was owned by the Himley Estates Ltd with an office in Dudley. The farmer was recorded as full time and the farm included access to 69 acres held by Dudley Golf Club. But the farmer had no other grazing rights.
All of the land was classified as medium weight, and the farm was said to be moderately conveniently laid out. The condition of the farm was judged to be naturally 10% good and 90% fair, with fair access to roads and railways. The condition of the farmhouse was good and that of the farm buildings was fair. The condition of the farm roads, fences and ditches was fair as was the general condition of the field drainage. There were no cottages. No problems were noted with infestations of rabbits, rats or rooks, etc nor any heavy infestation with weeds, there were no derelict fields. Water supply to the farmhouse and the farm buildings was by pipe and to fields by stream. There was no seasonal shortage of water noted. There was apparently an electrical power supply to the house and farm. The condition of the arable land was good and the pasture was rated fair and fertilisers were used adequately on them both. The overall verdict on management of the farm? It was graded A.
Who completed the forms?
All of these forms were prepared by independent officials, one recording field information and visits taking place over a period of two years in all and the primary record being completed by another official at a later point. The visiting officials were J Griffin who seems to have visited some sites in July, August , September and October 1942, August, September and October 1943, and September 1944. C A Dickinson visited a couple of farms in May 1942.
The signing off of the primary record seems to have been the responsibility of E M Powell or E M Casstles and happened sometimes months or even more than a year later. The writing of the E M in the signatures is identical so I suspect that it was the same person who was a woman who got married!
Summary
These forms related to the farms which I could identify in the file as in and around the area of the Lost Hamlets. There were a few more forms with vague descriptions of the land they referred to – (land off …Road, etc) – often small areas and usually owned by companies or contractors and not with local family names that I recognised and I have not included these in this piece. Nevertheless I hope that I have covered most of the farms and smallholdings known to local people.
The information gathered was clearly to inform the Government of what capacity for growing food there was and where labour such as the Land Army should be directed, as well as controlling the distribution of food in the form of livestock, chickens, pigs etc so as to safeguard the ration system. And now, thanks to The National Archives, the best part of 100 years later, we can use it to build ourselves a picture of farming life in the hamlets during the Second World War.
It does appear that the farms in this area were, mostly through no fault of the farmers, generally of only fair or poor quality, partly due to historic industrial processes including quarrying and mining which resulted in subsidence and spoil tipping with consequent damage to the farmland above and around the mines and quarries. This was recognised at much earlier times than this war, as Farmer John Levett at Brickhouse Farm was reporting in 1820 that much of his farmland could not be used because of undermining and spoil tipping. Although some of this external damage will have settled and greened over to some extent after the mines closed, it seems likely that even more waste chemicals and other substances were deposited in unrecorded dumping in later years and as local industries diversified and expanded. The damage to the quality of the soil seems likely to have persisted for many years, if indeed it was ever very good. Alas, much of the land on the Rowley Hills had always been ‘rough grazing’ and it seems that farming in Rowley was often a struggle and the farmland did not, could not feed many people, even in the 20th century, other than for dairy purposes.
I hope you have found this an interesting chapter in the story of our local Farms.
In a previous post, (Daily life in the hamlets in times gone by, May 2023) I have quoted a passage from the memoir of George Barrs, the one time Curate of Rowley Regis , in which he writes with disdain, contempt even, of his Rowley parishioners. He was fairly scathing, too in some of his descriptions of them in the Burial Registers. It appears that this was a mutual dislike as there was at least one unsuccessful attempt to get rid of him by his own churchwardens in the early 1800s but this failed. More on that at a later date, perhaps.
But, as I have transcribed numerous Registers, Anglican and Non-conformist in the last few years I have noted that, as hand nail-making skills were overtaken by machinery, the ingenious people of the Black Country turned their dextrous hands to other occupations, in metal working especially but in other work, too. And industry continued to thrive in the area.
Even men who worked in physical trades such as quarrying and mining could still work in the nailshops at home. So when I see column after column in church or chapel registers which list occupations as ‘Labourer’ or – in the case of women – no recognition at all that they also worked at nailmaking or in other work, I always find myself wondering how accurate that generalisation was.
It is clear from some registers and from the sheer number of chapels that sprang up in local streets, (more than forty Primitive Methodist meetings in the Dudley area alone by 1840), that many people in the area around Rowley were not the godless alcohol ridden heathens that Barrs seemed to think but were actually independently minded men and women of character and determination who wanted to read the bible for themselves, pray in their own words and to worship in the way they chose in chapels which they had built. In addition to those forty PriitiveMethodist meetings, there were also Wesleyan Methodists, often worshipping in close proximity to the Primitive Methodists plus numerous Baptists and others such as a notable Society of Friends, otherwise known as Quakers. These people chose their own paths to spiritual fulfilment, many of them learning to read along the way.
Many of the chapels which were built were fine buildings which had to be funded locally, and they often involved heavy commitments in time and activities to run them and organise their activities. For at least in the Methodist churches worship was not confined to Sundays, nor to one service on Sundays, two or three was the norm and several services on week nights. Sunday Schools educated adults as well as children. And there were prayer meetings, men’s groups, women’s groups, choirs, bible study groups, too which met in the evenings during the week. Perhaps it was the wholehearted commitment of dissenters to their chapels that annoyed Anglican priests who saw themselves as leaders of their communities by right. The abuse heaped on dissenters in early days was very real and not always confined to words. There was little meeting of minds for many years afterwards.
There was nothing primitive about the organisations of these chapels, there were accounts, trusteeships, preaching rotas, training, printed lists, even before there were paid Ministers. And such Ministers as there were travelled many miles to preach in different places. There were women preachers, too, long before the Established Church ordained women.
Simple descriptions in official records of trades such as labourers or nail or chain makers must conceal the true nature of many of these people. Thinking about my own family, my uncle Bill Rose appears in official records, quite accurately, as a Gas Fitter. And so he was, all of his life. But that was only the day job, he was also for many years a very competent Secretary to our family Methodist church and for many many years, a Trustee of the Church, as was his father, my grandfather who was supposedly just a humble cobbler. And my uncle was also very active in the Worker’s Educational Association in the Birmingham area, promoting not only his own lifelong continuing education but that of others, enriching lives, expanding minds. He was an intelligent, cultured and modest man and highly respected in our chapel, though he never sought this and would have been unwilling to acknowledge it. And I am sure there were many many other such people in our community whose talents and abilities were put to good use but which have faded now from knowledge. Rowley has produced poets and composers as well as nails.
Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (my mother’s favourite poem) touches on this, the unrealised potential of humble folk.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flow’r is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray;
Along the cool sequester’d vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
Perhaps it was simply the independent non-conformist thinking of many ordinary local people that went down badly with the Reverend Barrs. I am convinced that there is a deep thread of non-conformism in my own personality, which surfaces from time to time even today and that this may well have been a defining characteristic of many Black Country people.
Increasingly, in the course of this study, I have had to revise my original view that not many people in Rowley would have stirred from their roots. Increasingly, I have found evidence that there were numerous people who did indeed travel and expand their trades, not only in this country but further afield, too. As regular readers will already know I discovered that one ancestor had married in London and I had wondered whether he was acting as a courier for the nail trade, possibly in connection with the Crowley family who had lived in Rowley before moving to Stourbridge and subsequently London in later generations.
This week I read an article about the Crowley family which mentioned that a book entitled Men of Iron – by M W Flinn, about the early iron industry with particular reference to the Crowley family, had been republished. It was first published in 1962 and Professor Flinn published other books on similar themes before and after this volume. This edition had become rare and expensive. But a copy was loaned by the Winlaton & District History Society to the Land of Oak & Iron Legacy Group and, with the enthusiastic consent of Professor Flinn’s family, the printed text was scanned, transcribed and reset to produce a new edition in 2019. It sounded an interesting book and, thinking that there might be some reference to Rowley Regis , I ordered myself a copy, an early self-Christmas present! It arrived this week and has much detail about the early iron industry and the families involved in it.
Copyright: Land of Oak & Iron 2019.
If you happened to be passing my house late on the evening it arrived, you may have heard a distinct ‘whoop!’ as I read the first few pages as my bedtime reading. This paragraph, on Page 8, is what gave rise to that whoop.
“Rowley Regis, in the heart of the Black Country, was a typical nail-making community. It was distinguishedin the seventeenth century not only for its concentration on nail-making, but for thenumber of families living there which produced the leaders of the iron industry in the next century. The Court Rolls of the Manor in the seventeenth century contain many references to the Wheeler, Parkes, Haden, Foley, Darby and Crowley families. Of the men married at Rowley in the years 1656-7, no fewer than forty were classed as nailers, the next largest occupational group being husbandsmen of whom there were four. Rowley Regis specialised at this period in the manufacture of rivets, hobnails and small nails.“
Copyright: From Men of Iron – by M W Flinn, published by Land of Oak & Iron 2019.
Whoop, whoop! So there it is, summed up. Not just ignorant unskilled labourers lived in Rowley, or at least not all! There were numerous families of industrious, innovative, inventive, clever, determined men who influenced the future of the iron industry and the whole of the surrounding area and further afield.
Flinn goes on to say a little more about Ambrose Crowley I who lived in the village, although his birthplace is not known. He had married Mary Grainger in the early years of the seventeenth century and settled in the village.
“Like his son and grandson, Ambrose I appeared to have had a numerous family, comprising at least five sons and four daughters. No records of his activities have been traced apart from the fact that he was a nailer. He was described as such in his Will which gives an interesting picture of a combination of light industry with an agricultural smallholding that must have been fairly common amongst the domestic workers in seventeenth-century industry. His property was valued at his death at £24.4s 8d and this included, besides his bellows, hammers and other implements valued at a mere £1.10s.0d, ‘muck in the yard, 3s 4d, cheese in the house £1.10s.0d, a cheese press and some old books; two cowes and one weanling calf, £4 10s 0d.’ Clearly his way of life was far from mean or uncultured, for his house contained six rooms in addition to the workshop and a barn. He died in September 1680 at Rowley Regis.”
Copyright: From Men of Iron – by M W Flinn, published by Land of Oak & Iron 2019.
The best £10 I have spent on a book in a long time! I have a lot more reading to do in this book and in “The Seventeenth Century Foleys: Iron, Wealth and Vision 1580-1716” which I bought at the Black Country Society Local History Conference in July but have only dipped into. Both books have information about the processes used in the iron industries and how these were refined and improved over time.
So our tiny village of Rowley Regis was not just a sleepy backwater in centuries gone by but home to some amazing people who influenced the whole of the Industrial Revolution. I am prouder than ever to call myself a Rowley girl.
On the 19th August 1926, nearly 100 years ago, the Dudley Chronicle published an article which it entitled “Picturesque Portway – Interesting Facts about a Little Known Village”. I have not often seen Portway described as a village but no matter. And there seems to be some confusion in the mind of the writer as to where Portway village was, as the Portway Tavern is mentioned as being in the village. And cottages in Gadds Green are also mentioned in the article so Portway seems to be a very broad description covering several of the lost hamlets, rather than the area we know as Portway now. The writer clearly does not regard the area which I think of as the Lost Hamlets as part of Rowley village but rather as an insular self-contained community in itself. But there are indeed some interesting facts mentioned. And I am including it in the study of the Lost Hamlets because parts of the article refer to them.
Portway was introduced in the article as “a small ancient village on the slopes of the Rowley Hills, its associations stretching down into the very roots of our early history”.
The year this was written – 1926 – is significant because this was time of the General Strike, which lasted from 3rd to the 12th May. Much of the impetus for the strike related to the mining industry where the mines were in the ownership of private individuals and where working and safety conditions were poor and wages had been steadily reduced over a period of a seven year period was reduced from £6.00 to a miserly £3.90, an unsustainable figure contributing to severe poverty for a generation of workers and their families. When the mine owners announced their intentions in 1926 to reduce wages further and to increase working hours, they were met with fury by the Miners Federation. “Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day” was the response of the miners. Although the General Strike was only for a few days, the dispute between miners and mine owners lasted in some areas until November of that year.
Copyright: Anthony Page
One of the results of that, and not for the first time, was that people went out digging bits of coal from waste heaps around the mines, as shown on this photograph from Anthony Page’s first book on Blackheath, though he dated this photograph to 1912. But pits were already closing before that, according to Chitham, due to being worked out or because they were flooded, owing to the various owners being unable to agree on a comprehensive drainage scheme. During the 1926 General Strike, no coal was being produced which meant that the mine pumping engines had no coal and water rose in all the mines, sometimes to the top of the shafts. Coal picking on pit mounds became commonplace and Chitham says that miners assembled in hundreds to protest and support the pickers for the pit banks were also being explored by the mine owners, attempting to supply customers – removing waste coal, slack and other material was illegal for the public. But the damage was done to the mines, most of the pits never recovered.
So it was this background which led the article in the Dudley Chronicle to describe Portway as “a miniature Eldorado for coal-pickers since the commencement of the coal strike”. The result of the activities of the coal pickers was that “moss capped pit mounds, derelict these many years, to which Time has brought some appreciable improvement in aspect and old pathways, leading over sites of collieries long forgotten – few wanted to remember them – have been dug up and are now honeycombed with potholes and chasms.” There was a specific example mentioned of a well used path which led from Whiteheath Villa into Throne Road and which was said to be now full of holes, some five feet deep and several yards in circumference, which the writer feared might prove very dangerous on dark nights if they remained unfilled!
Although the writer did not claim that the area was all beautiful – “Portway’s greatest admirer would not call the village beautiful” – he considered that centuries before the area must have been “replete with aesthetic scenery” and must have commanded “one of the most charming panoramas in South Staffordshire”, which he considered had not been destroyed by industry. “There are many more natural altitudes in the county but none of the scenes visible from them is more beautiful today than that part of Worcestershire which, when visibility is good, can be seen from the apex of Portway’s heights, beyond the smoke and dust of the intermediate industrial parts”. A touch of the Hackney Marshes in that observation, methinks.
The situation, the writer continues, was different now in 1926. The many derelict pit mounds, of gigantic proportions, had been beginning to assume a vernal aspect and might have been, in a few years, as verdant as the Rowley Hills themselves, but were now as much of an eyesore as ever they were. “Just when people were beginning to comment upon the phenomenal aptitude of plants and herbage to grow and flourish on derelict land, the all life-giving powers of nature were frustrated by a few weeks of economic distress”. Perhaps not quite how the miners and their families would have seen it!
However, the article goes on to say that Portway would remain attractive because the fascination of the ‘obscure little village’ was attributable to “its old-world atmosphere, its divers associations with the past and old and interesting legends which had been handed down through the generations and will doubtless survive more incredulous generations than our own”.
Here are some of the things the writer found of interest in 1926.
The legend of the Finger i’ the hole cottage
This is a story much discussed on the Facebook page “I remember Blackheath and Rowley Regis” with several variations on a theme. So here is the story which was being told by local people in 1926.
“One of the strangest of the legends is that of the Scotsman, who, when collecting money from the cottages in Gadds Green, Portway, went to a cottage, put his finger in the hole provided to lift the latch, and had it chopped off by the occupant.
Our representative visited the now dilapidated cottage where the incident is reputed to have taken place. The cottage is the fourth of a row, and is known in the neighbourhood as “Finger ‘o the hole cottage. “
Copyright: Alan Godfrey Maps
Here is the 1902 OS map of Gadd’s Green and there are indeed four cottages in a row – could this be the location of the legendary Finger i’ the Hole Cottage?
The article continues “The front of the building was blown out one winter’s night many years ago when the occupant was a Mrs Cox, now of Gornal, and it has never since been repaired. The cottage is said to be over 300 years old and one family – that of Hill, members of which reside in an adjacent cottage – lived there for nearly 200 years. It is constructed of rough grey sandstone, and originally had two rooms, one up and one down. A stout roughly hewn oak beam, crossing the building from gable to gable, indicates where the first floor once rested, and shows that the height of the living room was under six feet. Occupying one-half of the building is a spacious old-fashioned fire-place, with a large open chimney and contiguous bake ovens. No fewer than ten men can comfortably stand in the aperture once occupied by the grate and its side seats.”
What a picture that paints! The Hill family were certainly in the area of the hamlets, two families of them in Gadd’s Green, then called Finger i’ the hole, in the 1841 Census and in later censuses also in Perry’s Lake.
A Royal Visit
“Another well known legend about the locality” the article goes on “is that concerning King John. It is said that in the early part of his reign the King visited the neighbourhood, and set up his throne in Throne Road. The site is supposedly marked by a group of four old cottages at the bottom of the road, and the story was once printed and sold by an enterprising grocer in the district. Verisimilitude is given to this otherwise almost incredible story by the fact that King John was greatly interested in Worcester, in the adjacent county (where he was buried) and was a frequent visitor to that place. He also frequently hunted in the forests of Kinver and Feckenham, which are not far distant from Portway.
The legend associated with Romsley in Halesowen, is that King John came onto Romsley Hill and, seeing the Premonstratensian monastery [presumably Halesowen Abbey] from that altitude, a circumstance he had wished to avert, walked away in disgust, also tends to give credibility to the Throne Road episode.”
What interests me about this account is that, although I had never heard about the Romsley story, my mother told me that she had been told as a child that Bell End was so called because King John had a Hunting Lodge there where a bell was rung to guide the hunters back after the chase. So that is another story which associates the Rowley area specifically with King John. I have also wondered how the area which always seemed to be known as ‘The Throne’, long before it became Throne Road, got such a name. So perhaps it just may be true. And I have not seen any convincing account of how the area came to be Rowley Regis, Rowley of the King. Maybe, maybe…
Roman Portway
The article also tells of possible associations of the area with the Romans. The name Portway itself is, the writer claims, indicative of a Roman Road over the heath, or perhaps the old line of British trackway. I have heard it suggested that it may have been one of the ‘white ways’, the roads along which salt was transported around the country. These roads often passed through places with the word white included in their name, presumably because the salt was white. And it may or may not be coincidence that our portway road passes through Whiteheath…
Another Roman connection mentioned in the article relates to the discovery in 1794, when some workmen were demolishing a wall in the locality and discovered an ancient pot or vase which contained a large number of Roman silver coins. The article states these two indications go “conclusively to show that Romans once occupied the neighbourhood, which was in those days of considerable strategical importance, owing to its altitude”.
I must admit, I am not quite as convinced as the writer obviously was but it would be nice to know where those Roman coins went to!
Portway Houses
A peculiar characteristic of a number of old cottages in Portway was noticeable, apparently, which was that one or perhaps more of the windows in each were bricked up, undoubtedly by former tenants (or landlords) to evade the window tax. As an alternative to paying tax, the article suggested that “our forebears could live solitary lives in darkened tenements”.
The window tax was in force from 1695 to 1851 and led to many windows or openings being closed up to avoid the tax. a tax of two shillings was set for all homes with up to ten windows, with four more shillings payable by those with up to twenty windows and a further four shillings on top of that by those with more than thirty. The tariffs were varied over time. In 1766 the primary threshold was adjusted to seven windows. Unsurprisingly, the number of homes with exactly seven windows swiftly plummeted by an estimated two thirds. This legislation apparently gave rise to the expression ‘daylight robbery’.
An article online suggests that “the health of the population was significantly affected by the inevitable tax planning manoeuvres of the day. Even by the mid 18th century the medical profession were clear that living without adequate light and ventilation was causing increased typhus, smallpox and cholera and this is borne out by the Public Health Reports I wrote about recently. The tax, and property owners’ attempts to avoid it, had become a primary cause of death for many of the country’s poor”.
One can, of course, still sometimes see houses where windows have been bricked up for this purpose but generally only in fairly substantial houses though this may only be because the poorer dwellings have long since fallen down or been demolished.
Also on local houses, the writer observed that there were a large number of houses in Throne Road which were of some antiquity.
Old Portway Farm, 1960s. Copyright unknown but will be gladly acknowledged on receipt of information.
Several apparently had doors “on the outside of which was quaint partially corroded iron decorative work, the stout weather-beaten panels being held together by wooden pegs. Some of the cottages are partially erected of unpolished grey sandstone; some half- timbered, quaint and diminutive; a few large and of comparatively good architecture, whilst one – Portway Hall, in Throne Road, has a conspicuously fine frontage and is of imposing structure. The date of its erection, according to a plate over the large hall door, is 1672. On the plate is the head of a judge, which suggests that the building might have been the residence of a county judge, sheriff or magistrate.”
Portway Hall. Copyright unknown.
“The writer was permitted to look over the interior of the Portway Hall. The furniture is of considerable antiquity, some being of the seventeenth century. In the dining room, one is first impressed by a massive brightly polished chandelier; next by innumerable old vases decorated with quaint figure work in divers hues, and finally the eye is attracted by large dark oak chairs, which are carved, like the ancient miserere seats in our ancient cathedrals. Halfway up the large wide staircase leading to the first floor, one meets two cavities in the wall, each side a high stained glass window which are now occupied by vases but which were unquestionably made to hold statuettes. The ceilings of most of the rooms are richly scalloped in fine art and in the hall door, the stained glass, which is of another century, is very picturesque.”
Many current members of the Facebook page can remember visiting Portway Hall in the latter part of the 20th century, it is interesting to read an account written in the early 1900s. What a pity that this hall did not survive.
The Portway Tavern
The Portway Tavern is described as “the rendezvous of generations of quarrymen”, referring to recent renovations which had done much to modernise the exterior but it was noted that “the interior is pervaded with an old-world atmosphere. On a rack in the smoke room are twenty-two churchwarden pipes, numbered and tobacco stained, the blackest belonging to the oldest and most regular attendant at the pipe club which meets in the tavern on winter evenings.”
Churchwarden pipes. Copyright Pipes Magazine.
The people of the area
The writer concludes that Portway is secluded and peaceful, its people on the whole an insular contented lot whose families have lived in the same cottages or the same street and worked at the same occupation for generations. He describes how, a stranger, stopping to ask a question, in a moment, is surrounded by a crowd of well-meaning inquisitive folk each contributing to the reply. Once the bona fides of the visitor is established, which he says is not easily wrought, he will be taken into their cottages and treated as one of themselves.
“There is a strangeness of spirit, so different from the traditional English. The men folk work on their doorsteps in the quarry and although they chose to remain secluded, their contribution to the world’s market – the famous Rowley Rag – has brought the urban district fame.
At the conclusion of this fascinating article the writer notes that many people – even in Rowley District would never have seen a quarry from which the Rag is produced. He describes a typical quarry, now derelict, standing near the apex of Portway (in which, remember, he includes Gadds Green and Perry’s Lake). He writes:
“It is a gigantic cavity, half a mile in circumference and of tremendous depth. The steep moss carpeted escarpments, the massive grey and brown sandstone and rock cliffs constitute a very impressive picture. Poised on the very precipice of the quarry is a small ivy clad house, which looks down on the Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Herefordshire Counties. The Malvern, Clent and Warley heights are clearly visible and stretched out, as on an opened Survey Map, are Smethwick, Oldbury, Langley, Frankley and their contiguous townships and villages.”
The Blue Rock Quarry, Copyright Jim Rippin.
“Only with a view such as obtains from this altitude can one realise the multiplicity of two counties industries; the diversity of landscape; the strange mixture of the urban and the rural in Worcestershire; the ugliness of the squat, smoking workers’ cottages in the close proximity, and the extent to which man has despoiled the natural face of the Black Country.”
There is no by-line on this article, we cannot know whose thoughts and observations we are sharing a century later when that landscape has again changed beyond recognition. But it offers, I think, a fascinating glimpse of our hamlets and life in them a century ago. He was not completely correct about insularity, we now know, we have learned about the Rowley men who went off to work in other areas. But I think he may have captured something of the atmosphere of these small communities and the people who lived in them for centuries.
In the course of researching my post on the Hailstone in April, I came across and mentioned this quote:-
Stone Pillar Worship (Vol. vii., p. 383.) [Date not known but certainly prior to 1879 and probably much earlier.]
“—The Rowley Hills-near Dudley, twelve in number, and each bearing a distinctive name”
This quote has kept coming back to me since writing the post and I wondered whether it was possible still to name the twelve hills today.
Ist Edition OS Map, surveyed between 1814 and 1827. Copywright David & Charles. The hatching of the area of the hills may be a useful clue!
Some are easy. Turners Hill, Darbys Hill, Hailstone Hill and Hyams or Highams Hill spring immediately to mind and are clearly marked on OS and earlier maps.
Was The Knowle one of the hills? The original spelling seems to have been The Knoll which is another term for a Hill so perhaps this was one of the old names.
There was a Rock Hill quarry marked on the 1902 OS Map, near to Darbys Hill, along with Rough Hill shown on the map above Springfield. Hawes Hill, also on the OS maps, lay just below the village.
Surely the hill on which the main street of the village was built, on which the church stands to this day, was Rowley Hill? When I walked to school in Hawes Lane, I certainly knew I was walking up Rowley Hill and if a stranger asked where Rowley church was, you would say that it was at the top of Rowley Hill but that name doesnot appear on any maps. And what happened to Dobbs Bank, shown on the First Edition OS Map? Is a Bank a Hill?
The OS map also shows a Bare Hill Farm, near Oakham and Bare Hill is shown on a map of 1820. The names Rough Hill, Bare Hill and Rock Hill quarry do tell us something of what the terrain looked like.
Was there a Portway Hill – it is still referred to as such today but the road was always just called Portway, rather than Portway Hill and the OS Map labels the hill there Turners Hill, rather than Portway Hill.
Allsop’s Hill is mentioned in documents occasionally but that may have been a later name associated with the owner of the quarry.
Are Haden Hill and Old Hill just too far away? Is Gorsty Hill counted as part of the range of hills? Moving over the county boundary, are Kates Hill or Cawney Hill part of the range, too or Tansley Hill which is just below Oakham and appears to be part of the same range of hills? I did not know that there was a Warrens Hill until I looked at this map. (I wonder whether there were rabbits there?)
Does Bury Hill fall within the group? Was Waterfall Lane ever known by name as a hill? There is plenty to consider.
Goodness, the whole area is hilly!
On a recent trip back to the area, I was struck by how hilly the whole area is, every road seemed to go up or down hills, right over to Merry Hill and Brierley Hill and to Furnace Hill in Halesowen.
So this is my list of the possible candidates. The first twelve appear on OS maps and I personally would regard as part of the range of Rowley Hills. The others are listed in my order of probability and proximity.
Turners Hill
Darby’s Hill
Hailstone Hill
Highams Hill
Hawes Hill
Rough Hill
Bare Hill
Rock Hill
The Knowle/Knoll
Timmins Hill
Warrens Hill
Dobbs Bank
Rowley Hill
Portway Hill
Allsop’s Hill
Tansley Hill
Cawney Hill
Kates Hill
Gorsty Hill
Haden Hill
Old Hill
Bury Hill
So I would be very interested to know what others think, and would welcome some group participation! Especially, I would welcome thoughts from local people who may know of names I have not found on maps. Answers on a postcard please or better still, please comment if you have views on which were the twelve hills of Rowley or if you know of more possibilities, either here on the blog or on the ‘I remember Blackheath and Rowley Regis’ Facebook page where I will put a link to this article.
As I have mentioned before, although the landscape around Rowley became industrialised and scarred by mining, clay extraction and quarrying, much of Turners Hill remained open countryside and in use for farming, supplying the local population with milk and eggs until well into the 20th century and much of the area on the hill is now being returned to a green condition as quarries are filled in.
There were several farms on the Rowley side of Turners Hill itself, and this post is principally about Freebodies Farm, Hailstone Farm andTurners Hill Farm with a mention of Lamb Farm, nearer to Portway Hall. To local people these farms were often known by the names of the farmers living there at the time but on maps their traditional name are usually shown. Of the local farms, there were apparently at least four dairy farms in the area in the 1920s and 30s, run by the Monk, Richards, Merris and Skidmore families.
At an early stage there was a Mill or Windmill Farm at Tippity Green although this was not identified in the later censuses, it appears to have been on the site of the former parish windmill and this area was subsequently quarried away.
This photograph of the Ibberty (later Tippity) Manorial Mill appears in J Wilson Jone’s book, The History of the Black Country which was published in about 1950 although the date of the photograph is not known.
In 1841 Edward Alsop aged 60 was listed as a farmer at the Wind Mill Farm in Tippity Green, with his presumed wife and four children, plus a male servant. Next listed on the Census was Elizabeth Lewis, aged 40, an ironmonger, with her family and then Joseph Bowater who was a butcher and subsequent licensee of the Bulls Head so that is the correct area in Tippity Green. Neither the Alsop nor Lewis families are listed in the area by the time of the next census.
There was also a Knowle Farm but this is not quite within the area of the Lost Hamlets and I have not indexed the Census for this area.
Also, the late Anthony Page has a picture in his first book on Rowley of Warren’s Hall Farm which was over the top of the hill on the Oakham Road, a large white house. It later also had riding stables and later still became a residential Nursing Home before being demolished and replaced by housing. Again, it is not quite within my study area and I have not indexed the census for this area.
Portway Farm, also slightly outside my study area, still exists though no longer in farming use, perhaps the only one of all these farms to have survived as a building to the present day.
The Censuses
The Censuses are not consistent about how the farms were recorded. Sometimes they were not listed by name. Where I have been able to identify the farms I have shown the results under details about each farm. To date I have only transcribed censuses for the Study area up to 1881. Later ones will follow in due course and I hope to upload the transcripts to a website for the Study at some point.
Not all the censuses include the acreage farmed by each farm but where they do, they vary considerably from one census to the next which does not help with the identification process.
Where on Turners Hill were the farms?
I was very unclear until recently exactly where each of these farms was although I think I have them identified now. No doubt someone will help me out if I have this wrong!
Freebodies Farm and Hailstone Farm were next to each other down a lane on the left off the Turners Hill Road, above the Hailstone quarry with the Hailstone Farmyard being at the end of the track in the area shown on OS maps as Gadds Green. Hailstone Farm occupied the two buildings shown on the left on this photograph and Freebodies the three buildings on the right.
The date of this photograph is not known (copyright also unknown but will be gladly acknowledged if informed) but the two farms are very much on the brink of the quarries so probably 1960s.
Turners Hill Farm was further up the hill, on the right.
Turners Hill Farm, 1969. Copyright: Mike Fenton
Many of the fields were divided not by hedges but by stone walls which is a very common practice in areas where there is a ready supply of stone for use, as in the Cotswolds and in the Yorkshire Dales. There were some hedges, though, because Reg Parsons who grew up at 2 Turners Hill in the late 1930s told me that his mother loved the wild sweet peas which grew in the hedges near there. He remembered Vera Cartwright with the milk cart which delivered daily to Blackheath, Whiteheath, Langley and Rowley Regis, seven days a week. Before the advent of milk bottles, milk in most parts of the country was taken round in churns and cans and the cans were taken into the customer’s house to be dispensed into their own jugs. This was not just in Rowley, my husband can remember, as a boy, helping his uncle with his milk round in Gloucester where the same system was used. He also said that the horse or pony would know the route and stopping places where they would wait patiently for the milk to be dispensed before moving on to the next stop.
Reg Parsons also remembered that there was a field below his home on Turners Hill which was used as an fuel dump in the Second World War, he remembers piles of Jerry Cans on concrete bases and also an anti-aircraft gun (known apparently as Big Bertha) near the Wheatsheaf pub. My mother used to be on fire watch sometimes during the war, with the St John’s Ambulance brigade and she also remembered the gun there. Sarah notes that one of her grandfather’s fields was requisitioned by the army so this would have been for the fuel storage that Reg remembers and she also tells of family memories that during the war a German bomb landed on one of the fields killing a cow. And during air raids, the ponies pulling the milk carts had to be unharnessed in case they bolted, with all the potential loss of milk and vehicles. Later, in the 1950s, six caravans were put on the site which were lived in by local people.
Many people have mentioned their memories of the Cartwright family who farmed at Hailstone Farm on Turner’s Hill for many decades and who had a riding school, as well as the milk round. Sarah Thomas has written a fascinating book called Hailstone Farm about life on the farms there which she has published privately and, having come across my study online, she has very kindly sent me a copy but with the stipulation that she does not wish to have any of the contents to be put on social media. However, she tells me that she has deposited copies of the book in national and local archives so it would be well worth enquiring, if you are visiting local archives or perhaps Blackheath library, whether they hold a copy. Certainly Dudley Archives lists a copy and Sandwell Archives appear to but do not specify where it is held and it is not reservable through the library system. The book is full of photographs and pictures of documents and family memories and history. I will not be reproducing anything from it but it will inform me about the farms and where they were so that this study has a more accurate record of the farms and their ownership over recent years.
Freebodies Farm, Turner’s Hill
There has been, if not specifically a farm, then an area known as Freebodies on Turners Hill for centuries.
A Survey of English Place Names refers to it as an ‘early-attested site in the Parish of Dudley , a name of the manorial type, deriving from the family of Frebodi found in Dudley in 1275 and 1327’. Bear in mind that for centuries the main route from Rowley to Dudley ran over Turners Hill so directly through the site where Freebodies Farm later was. There was, may still be, an area of Dudley called Freebodies in the Kates Hill area of Dudley and the Freebodies Tavern was there until very recently.
The Morgan website has a large amount of well documented and referenced information on local families and the area and notes that a document in the Dudley Archives shows that there was a Deed Poll in about 1550 by a William Chambers Alias Ireland assigning ancient ecclesiastical land of the Priory of St John’s at Halesowen. A number of his descendants for the next 150 years appear in the local records of Rowley Regis and Dudley, using the names ‘Chambers alias Ireland’ These include intermarriages with the Darby family. The name Ireland is sometimes spelled ‘Ierland’ or ‘Yearland’. The same document demonstrates that they owned ex-monastic lands at Rowley called Freebodies, and this reference recurs in a number of later Darby wills. If you have Chambers/Irelands/Darbys or Cartwrights on your family tree it is well worth looking at this site https://www.morganfourman.com/ Sadly I have none of these names in my tree!
A survey by Lord Dudley’s Stewards in 1556 produced a rent roll in which William Ireland’s Freebodys, later called Freebury Farm is recorded, suggesting that it was established before the neighbouring Hailstone Farm.
A Will of John Chambers in 1870, implies that the farm on Turners Hill was originally part of the Freebodies estate. Certainly, John Chamber’s brother William was an executor of his will and was described as a farmer of Rowley Regis.
At other times it was known as Freebury Farm. Spelling was very variable in those days!
Censuses for Freebodies: At Freebodies Farm in 1841 were Josiah Parkes and his family (including Sophia Cole who was mentioned in my earlier article about the Cole families around Turners Hill, and one male and one female servant.
However, there is no mention of Freebodies in the 1861 Census nor any farmer listed in Gadds Green. However, listed as Farmhouse, Turners Hill and as a farmer of 30 acres is William Smith, aged 54 with his wife Sarah and his Levett granddaughter, plus two servants. Was this Freebodies?
In 1871 there is no mention of Freebodies Farm but two households are listed as ‘adjoining Hailstone Farm’ – John Bradshaw, an agricultural labourer aged 26 with his wife and his 11 month old son plus his brother aged 21 and also an ag lab. The brothers had both been born in Haselor, Warwickshire and his wife in Solihull. Also described as living ‘adjoining Hailstone Farm’ was a blacksmith Henry Russell aged 33 with his wife and daughter. So both of these households were from outside the area. It is possible that the land of the two farms was being worked together and the farmhouse used to house either farm workers or tenants.
The next building listed is Brickhouse Farm which was some distance away in Cock Green on the Dudley Road and which was being farmed by the Levett family with one ag lab and one female servant. There is sometimes no accounting for the routes taken by census enumerators!
Or was there a well established path across the fields between Hailstone and the Dudley Road at Springfield which everyone used? This seems likely as Reg Parsons mentioned to me that his father, on his way home from work, would sometimes get off the bus at Springfield to buy something from the shop there and would then cut up over the fields to home. This does seem more practical than the residents up on the hill always having to walk down to Perrys Lake, along Tippetty Green and to the Knowle that way. There is certainly a Footpath marked on the 1904 OS Map, here, running from Knowle Farm to Hailstone Farm and also further on up Turners Hill. .
Copyright: Alan Godfrey Maps
Hailstone Farm
A lease in Dudley Archives dated 1796 is for a lease of 21 years to Samuel Round, farmer, of Hailstone Farm (a messuage called Freeberrys alias Fingerhold – that Finger ‘I the Hole popping up again!) so it seems likely that the farm was established by the late 1700s.
Sarah’s Cartwright grandfather had been born on Hailstone Farm but the family then moved elsewhere, again this makes me think of the information on the Morganfourman site that the Cartwrights were closely linked to this area as far back as the 1500s. He took over first Lamb Farm in 1912 and then Hailstone Farm in 1924 and ran their businesses from there, including the riding school established by Sarah’s mother and the milk round (which had originally been started in the early 1900s when the family were living at Lamb Farm), later taking on the tenancy of Freebodies in addition in 1932, subletting the house to tenants. In addition to the Riding School, there were some Gymkhanas there – much more detail about this and photographs in this article in the Black Country Bugle in 2019. https://www.pressreader.com/uk/black-country-bugle/20191106/281505048027440
Later part of the family moved to another farm at Bewdley and Sarah’s mother and father continued to live at Hailstone until the 1960s when the lease was terminated and the land taken back for quarrying.
There is much more detail in the book about the farms, their construction, plans, photographs, invoices etc from the business in the book, a real very personal record of a Rowley Farm in the 20th century.
Censuses for Hailstone Farm
In 1841, the farmer at Hailstone Farm was Samuel Round who was sixty, with three servants, possibly the Samuel Round mentioned above who was granted a lease in 1796 or possibly his son . I can find no trace of Hailstone Farm or the Round family in 1851.
In 1861, Keturah Round, a married lady of 54 was at Hailstone Farm with several children though no spouse and she is described as the Head of the household though not a widow. She had married Edwin Round in Dudley in the Sep qtr if 1854 and was previously Wheale.
In 1871 Hailstone Farm was occupied by Elizabeth Stickley, a widow with her occupation given as Farmer with her two sons John aged 37 and Thomas aged 27, both described as Farmer’s son, along with Ruth Lees, a servant but possibly also related to Elizabeth Stickley as her maiden name was Lees. In the previous census this family had farmed at Oatmeal Row, Cakemore, next door to some ancestors of mine!
In 1881, there is no mention of Hailstone Farm, and no farmer listed but there are three households listed as Hailstone Hill. Susan Jones, who was 50 and a widow was listed as an annuitant aged 33, born in Middlesex, as were the two young nieces living with her who were scholars. Her femail servant was born in Kingswinford. It is tempting to think that this was Hailstone Farm. One of the other houses was occupied by Joseph Hooper, a Farm labourer, aged 48 and born in Cleverley, Shropshire and his wife Ann aged 54, born Thame, Oxfordshire. The tenants in this area certainly almost all came from outside the area, it seems.
Turners Hill Farm
Maps show Turners Hill Farm higher up Turners Hill from the other two farms and there is also a reference on some maps to Cloudland though not on recent maps. There appears to be a large House there, too, Turners Hill House and sometimes the owners of this house were also described as farmers. It is possible, since there is evidence that the Downing family had other land in the area which they let out, that farming was not their principal occupation and that most of the land was farmed from Turners Hill Farm, rather than house.
Censuses for Turners Hill Farm/House
At Turners Hill in 1841 was Joseph Downing with his wife Nancy, son Isaac and two female servants.
By 1851 still on Turners Hill but with no name given for their residence was his widow Nancy Downing with their son Isaac, aged 35 who was a ‘proprietor of lands’ and three unmarried daughters, all described as annuitants, plus a Thomas Whitehouse who was probably Nancy Downing’s brother as her maiden name was Whitehouse. Thomas Whitehouse was a widower, and also a ‘proprietor of lands’ like his nephew.
By 1861Isaac Downing was still living on Turners Hill, with his three sisters. This time he has given his occupation as “Principal occupation: general superintendence of the cultivation of land. “The Enumerator has added Farmer. But Stephen Parsons on Facebook commented that he remembers that in his time there was a large house on the right of Turners Hill Road which was Turners Hill House, and that Monks Lane ran below it which led to Monks Farm and the quarry. There was also an area in this location called Cloudland on some maps. So were the Downings perhaps living at Turners Hill House but contracting out the farming? It seems likely. I was interested to see on the Facebook page that Linda George has receipts signed by Isaac Downing in 1855 and 1856 for the letting of a farm at Darby’s Hill to Samuel Cook so the Downing family may have had substantial land holdings around the area.
The Downing siblings, still all unmarried, were still on Turners Hill, in 1871, Isaac, now 55, described as Landowner and Farmer and also on Turners Hill and described as a farmer of 88 acres in 1871 is William Whitehouse, a widower, with his two teenage sons a female servant and a farm labourer. I note that a William Whitehouse had been one of the witnesses of Joseph Downing and Nancy Whitehouse in 1810 so may well have been an uncle or cousin to the Downings. This census is the last one showing this Isaac Downing, as he died in November 1874 and was buried in St Giles.
There was also listed in 1871, however, a farmer of 60 acres on Turners Hill, James Bridge aged 28 with his wife Anne, one female servant and one agricultural labourer so this may have been Turners Hill Farm. By 1861 Ann Bridge, now a widow aged 39 was the farmer at Turners Hill Farm, by now farming 40 acres and employing 2 labourers, a cowman and a waggoner.
By 1881, there is the family of Samuel Woodall, an Engineer and Iron Founder listed first under Turners HIll, probably at Turners Hill House. He was 35 and born in Dudley. His wife Mary was born in Birmingham. In addition his two brothers and a sister were also living with them, with three female domestic servants, again all born outside Rowley. I presume this was the house previously occupied by the Downings.
Listed at 5 Turners Hill was William Giles, aged 30 – a farmer of 70 acres employing one additional man. This presumably was Turners Hill Farm. He and his wife were born outside Rowley, though not a great distance, being from Kingswinford and Cakemore respectively. Their elder two children aged 8 and 6 had been born in Enville, Staffordshire, the two younger aged 4 and 2 in Rowley Regis.
The Parish Registers
The Chambers family
On 31 October 1544, Margrett, wife of William Chambers was buried, so there were already Chambers in Rowley at this date. In 1558 William Chambers was buried. Between the two dates three Chambers girls – Mary, Margaret and Agnes were all married at St Giles. The records from 1558 to 1566 are noted by the Vicar, Adam Jevenn, as being missing. (I wonder whether he was an early ancestor of the Jeavons families in Rowley and Blackheath?)
In 1575, Jone, as daughter of John Chambers was baptised and in 1602, John, son of Thomas.
On 12 Feb 1603, a child William was baptised, described as the son of Edward Shakespurre and Joane, d. of Christopher Chambers. Freebodies is not mentioned but certainly Christopher Chambers was associated with Freebodies then . In January 1641, Edward, son of William Chambers of Freebodies was baptised at St Giles, in 1744 another William Chambers of Freebodies was buried . Christopher Chambers was one of two people appointed in 1650, along with three others to be ‘Collectors for the poore’ which implies a certain social standing in the parish. At times, the Chambers used the name Irelands, too. Sometimes their abode is given as Churchend though it is not clear where this was. Certainly there were 152 Chambers entries in the Parish Register between 1539 and 1684 for baptisms and burials, 1539-1754 for marriages. On occasions Chambers were also churchwardens.
By 1723, with the burial of Elinor Chambers, widow, her abode was shown as Ffreebodies. Another branch of the Chamber, however was at Brickhouse in 1724. In 1727, Christopher Chambers of ‘ye ffinger i’ the hole’ was buried. Another branch of the Chambers was described in a marriage in 1732 as ‘of Tividale’. So the Chambers seemed to be scattered right around Turners Hill over several centuries.
The Downing family also had a long term presence on Turners Hill. The first Downing entry in the Registers is in 1644 when Robert, son of John Downing of Warrley was baptised, with numerous entries after that, the first Isaac Downing (that we know of) being baptised at St Giles in 1672. In 1814 Isaac Downing, of Turners Hill was buried aged 75, having died of Asthma.
Back in 1722, Mary, wife of Isaac Downing ‘de ffox oak’ was buried but he appears to have remarried the following year and had a child Samuell baptised at St Giles, with an Isaac Downing of Foxoak being buried in 1727, probably not the same man but possibly related.
On 23rd July 1815, Isaac , son of Joseph and Nancy Downing, was baptised and Joseph’s occupation was given as a ‘Beast Leech’ – someone who treated sick animals. Joseph and Nancy were still on Turners Hill in the 1841 Census. A daughter Mary Ann was baptised to them in 1818, followed by Lavinia in 1821 and Amelia in 1823. Another Isaac Downing was married to Elizabeth Nutt in 1815 so there were several Isaacs around then. Joseph Downing, originally a ‘beast leech’ and later a farmer died and was buried in St Giles on 2 Jan 1849.
Not all the Downings in the area were so well-to do – Mary Downing, aged 69 of Perry’s Lake was buried in April 1821, having died of cold. In 1823 William Downing, son of Joseph Downing a miner, died in the Poorhouse. In 1828 an Isaac Downing of Perrys Lake died aged 88 of natural decay so presumably there was some connection shown by the use of the name Isaac. There were also Downings in Mincing Lane, in Windmill End and in Portway, all apparently in labouring jobs of various sorts. By the 1840s another branch of Downings were living in Gorsty Hill and another in Waterfall Lane.
Only the Downings on Turners Hill appear to have been wealthy and one wonders whether perhaps one child might have benefitted from a scholarship to the Old Swinford Hospital and been able subsequently to have gone into a profession which improved his circumstances. I would dearly love to find out a list of Rowley boys who attended that school!
Lamb Farm
Lamb Farm was, according to Roy Slim, in an article in the Black Country Bugle in 2021, a small farm adjacent to the Lion Farm which later gave its name to the Lion Farm Estate, near Whiteheath so slightly out of my main study area but included here as there were connections to Freebodies and Hailstone Farm . Roy says that the Throne Farm, farmed by the Skidmores, was much larger than either of them and I presume that the local roads with royal names were so named because they were on land formerly part of this farm. Throne Road, Throne Crescent, Queens Drive, Hanover Road, Tudor Road, Windsor Road, Stuart Road. And I am interested to see that some of the modern roads there, built where the quack was, also have names with Royal connections, Sandringham Drive, Palace Close, Majestic Way, with the Vikings, Celts, Druids, Goths, Romans and Saxons getting a mention, too!
After the Cartwrights moved to Hailstone Farm in 1924, Lamb Farm was let to various tenants, including Hawleys, Hewitts, Slims, Matthews and Skidmores. Roy Slim has also written about his family’s time there.
Lamb Farm was sold for development in 1945.
Local memories of the farms
On the ‘I remember Blackheath and Rowley Regis’ Facebook page, Raymond Kirkham remembered that he had known the farm halfway up Turners Hill as Cartwright Farm. This would have been Hailstone Farm, as at the time Raymond was growing up, the Cartwrights were working the area of both farms from Hailstone Farm and, although they leased Freebodies too and farmed the land, the house was let to tenants. He noted that the farm further up at the top of the hill was Monk Farm and this must have been Turners Hill Farm. He said that this whole area was his playground when he was growing up and his family got their eggs from the farm.
Ian Davies remembered Hailstone farm well, as he was related to the Cartwright family. Ian’s Geordie grandfather lived with the Cartwrights at Lamb farm, near Portway Hall, when he first moved south in the early 1900s. He remembers that by the 1950s George Cartwright had moved away to a farm near Bewdley and Hailstone Farm had been taken over by their daughter Vera and her husband George Thomas. George taught Ian to ride. The quarries were already threatening to swallow the farm back then. The narrow track from Turners Hill had quarries close on both sides. The farmhouse and top of the land were swallowed up by the Tarmac mega-quarry, The lower area stretching down to Springfield was used for housing.
Ian also remembered Lamb Farm which was on the left going down Throne Road, immediately after Portway Hall. He used to walk past the drive on the way to his grandparents’ house in Newbury Lane. He thinks that St Michael’s School was built on the land and that in the 1800s Portway Hall colliery was on the farm’s land and he thinks this was responsible for the subsidence that ultimately forced Portway Hall to be demolished.
Ian also kindly added a link on the Facebook page about memories of Blackheath and Rowley Regis to an article written by Sarah Thomas in the Black Country Bugle which appeared in Nov 2019, including various photographs.
There are obviously several family connections to the Cartwrights still in the area as Margaret Higgs said that George Cartwright was her father’s uncle, her grandmother was George Cartwright’s sister.
Mark Northall said that his father Frank Northall had worked at Cartwright’s farm as a lad.
Jill Watkins-Beavon had lived in Gadds Green which was the land opposite Hailstone farm, later her fmily lived in one of the four houses in the quarry.
William Perry remembered in 2018 that his father had told him that when he was young he would walk up Turners Hill to Cartwright’s (Hailstone) farm where they had a lovely horse that he used to stroke.
So this is all the information that I have found to date about the farms in the Lost Hamlets, all disappeared now into the quarry but helping to sustain the local populace in their time, and about the families who farmed them over the centuries. More information would be very welcome and this can be added, corrected or a further post done if sufficient additional information is found.
One of the things I have learned as I have been working on this One Place Study, but which I was already somewhat conscious of from my family history researches, is how difficult it is for us, in our relatively pampered modern lives, to really understand what our ancestor’s lives were like. How they coped with the sheer hard toil of their work, whether in mine, quarry or workshop, how they coped with the loss of so many of their wives dying in childbirth, husbands dying in industrial accidents, the high numbers of early deaths from diseases now rare or curable, their children dying young from diseases and conditions which have been overcome by modern medicine. Were they were worried by the changes in their surroundings as industry despoiled what had once been fields and pastures or did they consider the jobs that this brought were a benefit which outweighed this?
Some of this we may never know. We can only wonder.
So in recent times, I have widened my reading to address my lack of knowledge about those times.
A really good blog for Family Historians
I follow an interesting blog on WordPress which I highly recommend, called English Ancestors by Janice Heppingstall. Janice writes excellent and thoughtful (and very informative) pieces on family history and sometimes recommends books which she has found interesting. A few weeks ago she recommended ‘The Butcher, the Baker and the Candlestick Maker’ by Roger Hutchinson which is about how the censuses came to be taken, including a lot of fascinating information, well worth reading. She and I seem to share certain interests, such as what she calls ‘homing in on the little people’ and, like me, some of her ancestors moved from rural areas to industrial ones, including Mill towns, in her case in the North West. Similarly, a book entitled The real Oliver Twist by John Waller and about Robert Blincoe, who was thought to have inspired the character of Oliver Twist. That has also now been added to my pile of books to be read.
Contemporary Fiction as a source of information
At a conference on West Midlands history which I attended a few weeks ago, there was an interesting note from one speaker that we can sometimes learn from the fiction writing of contemporary authors. Francis Brett Young is the obvious writer for the Black Country ( though I confess to not enjoying his writing m7ch) but the other name which was mentioned as giving detailed descriptions of the hardships of many who worked in industry was Charles Dickens.
I have been an avid reader since I was a child but must confess that Dickens has never been top of my list of favourite authors. In fact, when I thought about it, I couldn’t remember reading any of his books apart, perhaps, from Oliver Twist when I was a child. I have seen the many adaptations of his works on television, of course, but again, not for many years so that I could not remember the details of the plots of even Great Expectations. The story of A Christmas Carol is more familiar – dare I admit that that is mainly because it is so deeply imbedded into our culture around Christmas, particularly from the Muppets Christmas Carol which was a family favourite for many years.
But the speaker at the history conference commented that Dickens had used his books to bring attention to the dreadful working conditions of ordinary working people, with some success and had helped to expose the poverty and living conditions of the poor as a result of the Industrial Revolution. He particularly mentioned ‘The Olde Curiosity Shop’ which is next on my reading list.
Different ways to read books!
Now I have a fondness for computer puzzle games. Not the sort of modern flash bang video racing explosive hidden object or match three stuff but actual puzzles, jigsaws, etc. I play a couple of games most days and like to think it helps to keep my brain active. One I have played for many years is called Sherlock and was invented by an American called Everett Kaser, he has many absorbing puzzle games. Recently I noticed that he had a new game called Beckett’s Books. This game takes books which he has transcribed and divides each page into squares (you can vary the numbers of squares) and jumbles them. Your task is then to put the squares back into the right order to give you a readable page before you can move onto the next page. This is done by matching the beginnings and ends of words and phrases – it is quite challenging at times. Kaser has a list of some fifty or so books available including many classics, such as The Secret Garden, the Father Brown Mysteries, several Sherlock Holmes novels, a number of Dickens classics, some of the PGWodehouse books, plus some which clearly reflect his particular interests and some American authors I am not familiar with. As you do the puzzles, of course, you read the book. Really properly slowly read the book – and it’s really enjoyable. The first Dickens book, I tried was Great Expectations. This brought home to me that Dickens really was a cracking writer and that he was very skilled at leaving his readers with a cliff hanger. He originally wrote many of his books for serialisation through daily or weekly publications and I can now fully understand how eagerly his readers would have been waiting for the next instalment. I could hardly wait to start the next page when I finished each one! This threatened to be so time consuming that I had to resort to buying copies of the novels to finish reading.
The Olde Curiosity Shop is, sadly (or perhaps fortunately) not among the books listed at the moment (so I have a pre-loved paperback copy on the way) but another novel called ‘Hard Times’ is among those Everett Kaser has listed and online reviews said that this was a diatribe about the evils of industrialisation, the effects on the air around and the suffering of the poor workers. So I have read (yes, and puzzled) that one. It’s a clever story and has many characters, sympathetic and not, many threads, some amusing and some incredibly sad at times. It is an interesting insight into the politics and prejudices of the time. I was actually moved to tears at one point which is not something that often happens to me. The other thing that is engaging is that it is written entirely without the benefit of hindsight. It reflects in detail how people really lived, worked, travelled, amused themselves at the time without anything but fairly primitive means of communication.
One chapter details an operation to rescue a man who has fallen into a disused mine shaft on the moors above the town – it is no less than riveting, giving so many details about the rescue that I had to wonder whether Dickens had actually watched such an operation.
The Whiteheath Mine Disaster
In December 2022, I posted the piece below on Facebook about a mine disaster at Whiteheath which had resulted in the death of eleven men. Although Whiteheath is slightly outside the Lost Hamlets area, I include the piece below, people living in the hamlets would certainly have known of it at the time and some men from there may well have worked in the mine.
‘The Ramrod Hall Colliery explosion 1856 – some local history which I had never heard of before.
Transcribing burial records last week for St Giles in 1856, I was curious to notice five consecutive entries for burials of young men all on the 15 August 1856, the abode for all given as Whiteheath Gate. The following day another young man from Portway was buried, none of these had any cause of death shown which was unusual for this register.
The loss of five young men would have been a grievous loss for such a small community so I did a little research. I wondered whether they had all died in some sort of accident together.
Knowing that the Ramrod Hall Pit was at Whiteheath, I searched the website of the Northern Mine Research Society and found the following information about an explosion there:
The colliery was owned by Lord Ward and was at White Heath Gate. The explosion occurred because of bad ventilation. This was partly due to the neglect of the ‘butty’, Thomas Barker who did not discharge the 17th Rule and did not inspect the mine before the men descended. Of the sixteen men and boys who were in the mine at the time of the explosion, eleven were killed.
Those who died were:
Thomas Barker aged 23 years,
R. Cartwright aged 43 years,
John Sheldon aged 36 years,
Thomas Shaw aged 35 years,
Thomas Round aged 34 years,
John Walletts aged 28 years,
William Simpson aged 33 years,
Samuel Willetts aged 26 years,
J. Fulford aged 16 years,
John Bryan aged 13 years,
T. Hampton aged 18 years.
At the inquest it emerged that on the morning of the disaster one group of men descended one of the two shafts. (The mine was quite new and had been closed for a few days because the men were working on the approach roads on the surface.) When the mine reopened, and the first party went down, one of them had a lighted candle which was seen to burn blue, indicating the presence of gas. The candle was sensibly blown out and the miners called up to the banksman that gas was present and to bring down a lantern. By the regulations, a lamp should have been used to test for gas before the men went down. This rule was neglected.
Another skip containing seventeen or eighteen men was lowered and a man named Barker, the butty, ordered some live coals to be placed in it, saying that there was no sulphur for the lantern. The explosion took place as they were being lowered, blowing the basket and men out of the top of the shaft and causing terrible injuries to them. The accident was put down to the fact that there were two shafts at the mine and water was being drawn off one which forced the foul air up the other shaft.
Newspaper reports tell of hundreds of people rushing to the pithead after the explosion and miners from a neighbouring pit volunteering to go down to rescue injured men still trapped below ground.
Such a sad tale, such a hazardous industry and what a terrible event for the community of Whiteheath, so many widows and children left behind, without any means of support. There are frequent entries in the Burial Registers for men (and boys as young as ten) ‘killed in a pit’, even though in 1835 a mining investigative committee had been set up to figure out how to cut down on the number of accidents. Whatever they did was not enough to prevent the deaths of at least 610 miners in the Black Country between 1837 and 1842 and many more in later years.
A press report on this explosion states that the inquests were attended by two Inspectors of Mines and a solicitor (representing Lord Ward who was out of the country) to observe. The Coroner reported that he had gone down the mine the day after the explosion and again a few days later so he was obviously very thorough and such accidents were being properly examined.
Although the reports refer to Thomas Barker (who was buried the day after the other five) the Burial register and his Death Registration give his name as Baker. Thomas Barker/Baker was the ‘butty’ who gave the instruction to carry burning coals into the mine, even though he had been warned that gas was present. Presumably he was buried the following day as local feeling did not want him buried with the other men who died because of his actions. The Mines Inspectors though were clear at the inquests (there were five separate inquests because the men killed lived in different places) that the failure of the mine managers to keep a fire or furnace burning at the foot of one of the shafts to force air circulation through the mine was the reason that gas accumulated while the mine was closed for a few days. A horse kept underground apparently survived the explosion unhurt and for five days afterwards without any attention, food or water, poor animal!
Within weeks of the inquests, Mine Agents for the area met and agreed tougher new rules on ventilation in mines so perhaps this tragedy helped to prevent others.
The J Fulford listed amongst those who died was listed in the Burial Register as Joseph Fullwood, although his Death Registration gives his name as Fulford. So if you have a young man who disappears from your family tree in 1866 in this area, this may be what happened to them.
These days we sometimes tend to think H&S is too rigorous but those men could have done with rather more of it.’
That post generated some interesting comments, including some from a former HM Inspector of Factories who noted that “Nowadays, I think the verdict would not be directed at the fault of one person, ‘the butty’, rather the controlling organisation would be blamed (the employer/directors/management), ie it was a systemic failure. And I’m pretty sure the charge would be ‘corporate manslaughter by gross negligence.’ The dangers were well known, the precautions should have been in place, but weren’t.”
Hard times in Whiteheath?
Copyright unknown but will be gladly acknowledged if made known.
The connection here is that the rescue described by Dickens in Hard Times must have been very similar and vividly relates the incident almost minute by minute.
In the story, the two women who realised that a missing man had fallen down the shaft of a disused mine which had not been fenced off adequately (his hat had fallen off and was lying by the shaft) had to run long distances across the moor in opposite directions to seek help – no mobile phones, no phone boxes. It was a Sunday so people were not at work. Of the men the first woman found, one was lying in a drunken sleep – he was woken and hearing “that a man had fallen into the ‘Old Hell shaft’ he started out to a pool of dirty water, put his head in it and came back sober” – and Dickens recounts that he turned out to be the most useful of the men at the rescue operation. The other men ran off to nearby villages and others from those in turn ran on to other places to spread the word to get more help and equipment, before all heading back to the ‘Old Hell shaft’ where, again, they had to wait for more implements and help to arrive. No cars or lorries or helicopters, no mountain rescue, no first aid kits or painkillers or stretchers, no radios, no roads, the equipment needed had to be assembled and carried manually up to the shaft. Dickens notes that it was more than four hours before enough equipment arrived to start the rescue attempt. Difficulties had arisen in the construction of a means of enabling two men to descend securely before this was rigged with poles and ropes, requisites had been found wanting and messages had to go and return. Some of this would not have applied at Whiteheath, as it was close to other mines and it was a working day but some of the difficulties of the rescue must have been the same.
Eventually, in the story, a surgeon also arrived after messages were sent to the nearest town. By the time the rescue could be attempted, Dickens says perhaps two hundred people had assembled. “There now being enough people present to impede the work” the original rescuers, led by the man who had been drunk, “made a large ring around the Old Hell shaft and appointed men to keep it”. Again, one can well imagine this happening at Whiteheath where a large and anxious crowd had assembled.
When enough equipment had arrived a windlass was set up and a candle was sent down into the shaft to “try the air while three or four rough faces stood crowded close together, attentively watching it: the candle was brought up again, feebly burning “, – such a vivid picture this conjures – then a bucket was hooked on and two volunteers with lights were lowered into the pit where they found the desperately injured man.
“As the rope went out, tight and strained, and the windlass creaked, there was not a breath among the one or two hundred men and women looking on. The signal was given and the windlass stopped, with abundant rope to spare.”
Again, Dickens has some striking detail – he mentions that when the two rescuers had first been below for some time with no communication, some in the crowd began to panic that they too had suffered some accident but that
“the surgeon who held the watch declared that not yet five minutes had elapsed and sternly admonished them to keep silence’. Just then the windlass reversed and “practised eyes knew that it did not go as heavily as it would if both workmen had been coming up and that only one was returning.” Yes, those miners would have known that.
“The rope came in tight and strained; and ring after ring was coiled upon the barrel of the windlass, and all eyes were fastened on the pit. The sobered man was brought up and leaped out briskly on the grass. There was a universal cry of “Alive or dead?” and then a deep profound hush.
When he said ‘Alive’ a great shout arose and many eyes had tears in them.”
‘The surgeon who held the watch’ – the watch – presumably not many of the onlookers would have had such a thing and presumably, too in such an operation, one watch has to be used as the timekeeper for that operation.
The story goes on that the fallen man was very badly injured and a hurdle was brought, on which a thick bed of spare clothes was made by the crowd while the surgeon contrived some bandages and slings from shawls and handkerchiefs.
“As these were made they were hung upon an arm of the pitman who had last come up, with instructions how to use them: and as he stood, shown by the light he carried, leaning his powerful loose hand upon one of the poles and sometimes glancing down into the pit and sometimes glancing round upon the people, he was not the least conspicuous figure on the scene. It was dark now and torches were kindled. “
Again, such a clear picture is in my mind of this man. Eventually, he was lowered again into the pit and again, the windlass stopped.
“No man removed his hand from it now. Everyone waited with his grasp set, and his body bent down to the work, ready to reverse and wind in. At length the signal was given, and all the ring leaned forward.
For, now the rope came in, tightened and strained to its utmost as it appeared and the men turned heavily, and the windlass complained. It was scarcely endurable to look at the rope and think of its giving way. But, ring after ring was coiled upon the barrel of the windlass safely, and the connecting chains appeared, and finally the bucket appeared with the two men holding on at the sides – a sight to make the head swim- and tenderly supported between them, slung and tied within, the figure of a poor, crushed, human figure.
A low murmur of pity went round the throng and the women wept aloud, as this form, almost without form, was moved very slowly from its iron deliverance, and laid upon a bed of straw.”
Now, to me, that was the most vivid report I have ever read of such an operation, encompassing not only the details of the mechanics required but the expertise and skills of the rescuers, the feelings of those involved and those watching. I could not help imagining just those responses in the crowd which gathered after the explosion at Whiteheath.
Dickens does not allow the opportunity to pass of making mention of the huge numbers of pit casualties in those times. The victim here says (in a broad accent that I will not attempt to reproduce) that the pit into which he had fallen had cost, in the knowledge of old people still living, hundreds and hundreds of men’s lives, fathers, sons, brothers, dear ones to thousands and thousands and keeping them from want and hunger. The pit he had fallen into had had methane gases which he described as ‘crueller than battle’ which he had read about in public petitions from the men who worked in the pits, in which they prayed and prayed to the lawmakers not to let their work be murder to them but to spare them for the wives and children that they loved as much as gentlefolk loved theirs. When the pit had been in use, it had killed needlessly and even now it killed needlessly.
Powerful stuff!
Hard times was published in 1854, just two years before the Whiteheath Mine disaster, these scenes must surely have been very similar. The book was not necessarily well thought of at the time. Macaulay attacked Hard Times for its ‘sullen socialism’, but 20th-century critics such as George Bernard Shaw and F.R. Leavis praised this book in the highest terms, for what is both Dickens’ shortest completed novel and also one of his important statements on Victorian society. George Orwell later praised the novel (and Dickens himself) for “generous anger”. The works of Dickens are apparently regarded as having brought about or at least advanced many improvements to working and living conditions of the poor and voiceless which he laid before the mass of his readers.
Dickens was born in Portsmouth and left school to work in a boot-blacking factory when he was twelve because his father was in Debtor’s Prison. After three years he was able to return to school and later became a journalist, editing a weekly journal for twenty years as well as writing 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles. But it meant that he had first hand experience of working conditions and the lives of poor people. He was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children’s rights, for education, and for other social reforms.
Am I leaving you on tenterhooks with Hard Times? What happened next? One more short quote, then:
“They carried him very gently along the fields, and down the lanes and over the wide landscape; Rachael, [his beloved friend] always holding his hand in hers. Very few whispers broke the mournful silence. It was soon a funeral procession. The star had shown him where to find the God of the poor and through humility and sorrow, and forgiveness, he had gone to his Redeemer’s rest.”
Yes, I had tears in my eyes by this time, too.
As a new convert to the works of Dickens, I do recommend you to seek out the book Hard Times and read the whole thing – it is such a good read, such a reminder of how people behave to one another and the living conditions in which many ordinary people lived then. I shall be interested to see what Dickens has to say in the Old Curiosity Shop and what I can learn from that about the society in which Dickens lived and observed.
So I hope my readers will forgive this little diversion from the detailed posts about the Lost Hamlets and the people who lived in them – more posts on that in progress and to follow very soon.
In our generally comfortable living conditions today, it can be quite difficult to imagine the conditions in which our ancestors lived and worked. These are some memories which relate to Rowley and Blackheath, so technically may be considered outside of the area of the Lost Hamlets but I am sure that many of them apply also to the houses and residents there. Some of my own memories of growing up in Long Lane and Uplands Avenue are also included.
What the Vicar thought…
The Reverend George Barrs, who was Curate of St Giles from 1800 to 1840. He did not seem to have a high opinion of his parishioners and he wrote in the 1830s:-
“In 1831 the number of inhabited houses in the parish was 1366, the number of families occupying them 1420 made up of nearly 7500 individuals, an equal number of each sex, within a very few, the males predominating by only 7 or 8. 82 homes were then without inhabitants and only 5 building. Since then the state of trade has considerably improved, many houses have been built or are in progress but few unoccupied.
Of the above number of families 140 were occupied in agriculture and 909 in manufacture, trade etc. Many however who are ranked as agriculturists are frequently engaged in some branch of trade or manufacture. A very large proportion of the manufacturers are nail makers and nearly all the women and girls; that being the chief pursuit of the operatives in this and surrounding parishes. Here chains of various descriptions and the making of gun barrels especially in time of war, find work for many hands. Here also the manufacture of Jews Harps is carried on and sometimes employs a considerable number of persons.
A great many of the manufacturers are very poor and their families frequently appear clad in rags, and as if they could obtain but a slender pittance of life’s comforts or even necessities. This however is not to be attributed to their being destitute of the means of procuring these comforts in a degree unknown to other manufacturers but in their want of frugality, domestic economy and good management. Their work is laborious but they can generally earn good wages, which, if discreetly applied would furnish them with a comfortable competence. Unhappily however many, from their very youth contract habits of idleness and prodigality and these are a certain and fruitful source of rags and wretchedness. Since the national pest the “Beer Act” came into operation in 1830 their manners have become more dissolute, their morals more corrupt, their habits more idle and unthrifty and of course neither their personal appearance nor their domestic comforts has much improved.
Such is the degraded and grovelling condition into which many of the nailers are sunk that during the late war when wages were high those who could make a miserable living by earning 2 shillings a day would not earn another 2 pence when they might by no great exertion have earned 2 shillings a day. Of all descriptions of individuals these appear most anxious to observe to the very letter that maxim of holy writ “take no thought for the morrow for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself” The wretchedness that results from their conduct is indeed an undeniable proof of its criminality and of the enormous evil of such perversions.”
[Note: It is likely that this statistical information is taken from the 1831 Census which is not generally available and did not include as much detail as later censuses. This information relates to the whole ecclesiastical Parish, including Old Hill, Cradley Heath, Whiteheath and Tividale, not just the village of Rowley.]
It is evident that Barr was a man of strong opinions and a striking contempt for his working class parishioners. He had married into the Haden family and apparently lived at Haden Hall, rather than in the village. The resistance he met from local people in his campaign to build a new church may have contributed to his dislike for his parishioners, but surely there must have been a few decent people? Excessive drinking was undoubtedly a general problem in those times, though not limited to the Black Country and certainly the non-conformist churches were strongly against alcohol because of the problems it gave rise to in society. And I suspect that non-conformism, particularly amongst Methodists and Baptists was already strong in the area, perhaps even encouraged by the contempt of clergy such as Barrs.
A visitor’s view of Rowley Regis
Walter White, a traveller from London, visited the Black Country in 1860 and wrote about his observations in his book ‘All round the Wrekin’ . He walked through the village of Rowley Regis and along Hawes Lane and noted the numerous quarries producing ‘Rowley Rag’. He would have seen the breathtaking view over Old Hill from Hawes Lane, a view I later gazed out at from RRGS many a time. Later he went through Tippity Green, Perry’s Lake and over Turner’s Hill to Oakham, right through the Lost Hamlets, a long walk! He also noted, echoing round the village, the click-click and thump-thump of hammers, finding that nearly every cottage had a workshop with a forge in place of a washhouse. In each workshop he and his friend observed the same scene, three or four women hard at work together, sometimes with children helping.
He noted “The fire is in common; and one after another giving a pull at the bellows, each woman heats the end of two slender iron rods, withdraws the first, and by a few hammer strokes, fashions and cuts off the nail, thrusts the end into the fire and takes out the second rod and gets a nail from that in the same way. So the work goes merrily on.”
For the women working thus, it may not have been quite as merry as he found it.
Memories recorded by Wilson Jones
In his book The History of the Black Country (now available as a reprint) J Wilson Jones recounts that he, born in Walthamstow, had moved as a boy to Rowley Regis in 1921, following the death of his mother. He was often taken by his father to visit elderly relatives on Sundays – one born in 1839, one in 1844, one in 1845 and one in 1847 so their memories went back a long way. How fortunate we are that Wilson Jones listened to and remembered their tales and recorded them for posterity.
He tells that “One old lady had been sold as a bond servant at Halesowen Cross and had received three pence per day wages; another had been employed down the mines, harnessed like a horse and drawing tubs. They had all been nailers and had walked three miles to fetch iron, laboured 109 hours weekly for a penny halfpenny an hour, raised 11 children and saved enough to be owners of three houses. Recreational hours were unknown and children did part time work from seven years of age, school was voluntary and the majority could not read. “
Black Country houses were mostly of a pattern, and I recall that my first family home in Long Lane, my grandfather’s house in Park Street and my great-aunt’s house in Darby Street all exactly fitted this pattern. Built in terraces there was a long entry from the street to the back of the house (because the front doors were never used!) At the rear there was a scullery or kitchen, in later years sometimes using what had been a nailshop or Brewhouse joined to the house with a bluestone or blue brick yard. There were usually two rooms up and down with a cellar below. The lavatory was also in the yard at the rear – luxury was having a separate one for each house, often two or three or more houses shared one and people have commented on Facebook, remembering this arrangement in cottages in Tippity Green, Perry’s Lake and Gadds Green. And a garden where vegetables could be grown and perhaps room for pig and some chickens was a bonus and not always provided. My grandad Hopkins produced wonderful pickled shallots and grew beautiful flowers, in his garden and allotment. To this day I think of him when I see drumstick primulas which I remember him wearing in his buttonhole, in a tiny silver holder, when he visited us on Sundays.
Later, when nailmaking at home ceased, many workshops or brewhouses were linked to the house, sometimes with a glass roof and became the scullery or kitchen, often with bathrooms or toilets later added on at the back. My grandfather’s Victorian house in Park Street, Blackheath and our 1930s house in Uplands Avenue still had cast iron ranges in the 1950s with a lovely coal fire and a kettle that could be put on it. The range in Uplands Avenue even had a little oven and I can remember my dad cooking some little lamb chops in there, they tasted wonderful. And toast made in front of the fire, using a wire toasting fork and slices of bread, fresh from the bakery in Bell End, lavished with tub butter from the shop at the top of Mincing Lane, (this was Danish butter, I think, I can remember it was cut from the block in the tub in front of you, according to how much you wanted. The shop owner could judge perfectly how much to carve off, showing long years of experience.) That toast was glorious! Toast made now with mass produced bread and toasted with electric devices doesn’t taste the same at all.
My grandparents had rag rugs on the floor, no fitted carpets in those days – from memory these were made of rags clearly from old suits and any other sturdy fabric available, hooked into pieces of sacking and warmer on the feet than lino or brick floors, though the floor in the entry and in the link from the house to the scullery was made of blue bricks. The range in our house was taken out at some point in the late fifties and replaced with a fireplace with a posh gas fire with a Baxi Bermuda boiler behind it which made the whole house warmer and undoubtedly less dusty. And yes, like many people of my vintage, I can remember ice, exquisite ferny patterns, on the insides of the (unheated) bedroom windows in bad winters, hot water bottles were an essential and when it was really cold my dad used to put his army greatcoat over the bed, it was very heavy.
When we moved from Long Lane to Uplands Avenue in about 1957 we had an indoor bathroom for the first time – at Long Lane the bath was a tin tub which hung on the wall, filled on bath nights from the copper in the outside washhouse. There were still gas brackets on the wall at Uplands Avenue, (though disused) which had provided the lighting originally, and I remember we had a gas fridge, not something you hear of today with a tiny freezer section which just accommodated a little metal ice-cube tray. Not that we got ice-cubes out of it very often, as the freezer box accumulated frost around itself so that it usually became a block of ice itself. And your fingers stuck to the metal tray if you tried to extract the cubes. The trick was to hold it under the tap and hope the ice-cubes came out before they completely melted! If the little gas pilot light on the fridge went out, as it did periodically, my dad had to crawl into the space under the sink with a taper to relight it through the tiny hole at the back with a distinct ‘whoomph. Funny memories!
In most houses, including my home well into the 1960s, the front room or parlour was rarely used. In Victorian times it might have had an aspidistra, hard uncomfortable horsehair stuffed furniture, and a glass display cabinet. Perhaps a harmonium or a piano – my grandad Hopkins loved playing piano and had a white one! I can remember my great-aunt’s middle sitting room in Darby Street had a dining table with a deep red velour cloth with a fringe I loved playing with as a child, with a lace-edged white cotton table cloth over that. My aunt could remember visiting the same house in Darby Street when she was a child in the 1920s when her grandfather still made nails out in the workshop and she could remember that she was sometimes allowed to work the bellows for the forge for him. Despite being asthmatic, he walked regularly to the bottom of Powke Lane with a little cart to collect iron rod and coke for his forge from the Gas works, and to take his completed nails to be weighed.
On one occasion, Aunt Alice remembered, while ‘helping’ her grandfather, that she had got some ashes on her white pinafore and, realising that her mother would be cross with her, my great grandmother washed, dried and ironed it before she went home. In the days before washing machines, tumble driers and electric irons, this was no mean task and speaks volumes of her kindness. My aunt also remembered that her granny was a wonderful cook and she remembered freshly baked cakes and particularly custard tarts set out to cool on the window sill. Is it coincidence that my father, myself and my son all loved custard tarts? Who knows, perhaps there is such a thing as genetic memory!
Black Country dress remained the same, probably until the 1920s. Women nailmakers wore black lace-up boots, woollen stockings, long black skirt with a shawl , sometimes a man’s cap. Men wore checked shirts and sturdy leather belts. The photograph here shows my great grandmother Betsy Rose and my great aunts, taken in the doorway of their shop in Birmingham Road probably in the early 1920s or thereabouts, and her dress fits this description although her daughters are more fashionable! Old photographs from the time of chapel gatherings show that many of the older ladies appeared to be still wearing their ‘Sunday best’ outfits and hats from some decades before. ‘Sunday best’ was definitely a feature of life in those days and even in the 1950s with new outfits for children for the Anniversary each year and I can remember that the men in church always wore smart suits and ties, the ladies dresses or costumes and often hats – no dressing down!
My great-granny Rose with her daughters. Copyright: Glenys Sykes
Weekly routines
Each week in earlier times apparently had routines. Monday was washday and nailmaking , Tuesday brewing and nailmaking, Wednesday and Thursday house cleaning and nailmaking, Friday ess-hole and grate cleaning, knife polishing and nailmaking, Saturday Window cleaning and nailmaking, Sunday – preparing the Sunday dinner, church, chapel and Sunday school – no work, not even sewing! The days were long, starting at six and often not ending until 10pm. For women, all of this on top of bearing children, caring for and feeding them, there was little time for rest. Men often worked during the day at outside jobs, in the quarry, mines or farms but also made nails when they got home.
Meals also followed a routine – Sunday, the joint, Monday cold leftover meat, Tuesday broth, Wednesday boney pie, Thursday stew, Friday faggots or tripe. What they would have thought of our supermarkets, online shopping and ready meals I do not know!
But Wilson Jones notes also that, in his words,’ Black Country people had “hearts as big as buckets”, they would laugh with the merry and weep with the sad. Neighbours would share the duties of a sick woman, share their meals, deliver each other’s babies. There was never any knocking at the door, they lifted the latch and walked in. They would draw a pint of home brewed beer for the visitor, be he a vicar or insurance agent. Brewing reached an art that no other district shared. Each home had its ‘secret’ upon how many hops or what kind of malt was to be used. The fermentation had to be produced by no synthetic yeast but from the ‘barm’ passed from one relation to another. The visitor would be handed the glass of beer after it had been inspected for clearness and he had to express his opinion that it was better than ‘so-and-so’s’ – their beer was too muddy, too sweet or too sour’.
Looking back
So – living in tiny overcrowded houses with earthen floors, no running water or sanitation, big families, polluted air, deadly diseases when no cures were available leading to high infant mortality and often early deaths, men working in dangerous jobs in mines and quarries or in the constant heat and grime of factories and the nailshop, children working in nailshops, mines, quarries and factories from the age of seven or so, few shops, little money, little or no healthcare provision, plenty of hard work – our ancestors had tough lives, and few luxuries but often a strong faith and caring communities. I am deeply proud to be descended from them.
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